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Healthcare IT

US Hospital introduces real-time patient status system

By Clarice Africa | 21 October 2011

Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford has recently introduced a new digital patient-safety dashboard that aims to prevent medical complications arising from human error.

The Patient-Centred Dashboard uses data from electronic medical records to better represent patient status, thus replacing the handwritten whiteboards currently found in many hospital nursing units. In addition, the dashboard also improves compliance and is designed to be usable in other hospitals in the United States and around the world.

“Electronic medical records are data-rich but information-poor,” said Dr. Natalie Pageler, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and project manager for the Patient-Centered Dashboard at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

“This pilot is a first step in translating the tremendous volumes of data we now have available in a hospital’s electronic medical record system into practical information that can guide clinical decision making at the bedside of every patient.”

By simply reviewing the dashboard during their daily rounds, Physicians and nurses will be alerted to necessary and potentially life-saving procedures which includes: ordering the removal of a central venous catheter that is at risk of infection, changing from intravenous to oral medication, decreasing the use of unnecessary laboratory testing, using only necessary sedatives, taking measures to prevent pressure ulcers (bed sores), changing the amount a patient’s head is elevated to prevent ventilator-acquired pneumonia, identifying overdue procedures that place the patient at risk of infection.

For two years, HP and Packard Children’s Hospital has been involved in may joint collaborations that highlighted research projects that centred on patient safety – one of its results is the development patient-safety dashboard.

“By getting better information into the hands of caregivers, technology has the potential not only to improve lives, but also to save them,” said Jaap Suermondt, director, Healthcare Research, HP Labs, HP.

“Through our collaboration with Packard Children’s Hospital, we were able to develop a technology solution that finds and combines information at risk of being overlooked deep inside electronic medical records, and bring it to the eyes of the entire care team, ultimately allowing them to make critical decisions and help prevent complications.”

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