Clinical Transformation

I love the new Bing.com commercial. The daughter asks the parents a simple question and they begin to rattle off information containing the word within the request. Notice that they never get her the right information to answer her question.

The internet has made us more connected, and more informed than ever before. We are masters and weeding quickly through information, and scanning documents to find the nugget that we need, but how do we know we are getting the right information? How do we assess the nugget is not just information containing the word but not really providing the answer? Apply that thought process to the speed at which information travels to our clinicians. How do we make sure the right nugget of information gets to their hands at the right moment? How do we delineate critical vs clutter?Stay Tuned for the next post as we continue the discussion.

Clinical Transformation is an evaluation of the information, process, people, and technology. It provides a solution for how these items interact. It’s focused on the distinct goal to increase value. It does not simply use the processes to monetarily create value but also by value through improving quality of care delivery. Removing the Clutter from the caregiver and providing them with the right Data, at the right time, and in the right format. Patients need access to caregivers and vice versa. Caregivers need access to patient’s information.

ECRI Institute (www.ecri.org ) pointed out in their paper about the Top 10 Technologies for the “C-Suite” to watch in 2009, that Alarm Automation Tools will be an important hospital tool. However, they encourage hospitals to consider the following questions:

« Which patients are assigned to which nurses at any given time?
« Which devices are assigned to which patients at any given time?
« What data will be transmitted?
« Which patients’ alarms should be sent to which nurses?
« Which alarm escalation model will be employed?

We add this question, once you start automating your alarms how is your response to the need categorized? Do you have a response plan based on the categorization or on the specific alarm?

Sphere3 offers a number of solutions to how to effectively categorize alerts to have more effective alarm response.