Pagers, Electronic Tracking Reduce ED Wait Times
A common attitude in health care is, “we want to automate, but we don't want to change the way we do anything.” This works for some technologies, like dropping wireless phones or Vocera badges into your nursing units, but usually effective automation requires change.
And when contemplating a technology solution to operational problems, a methodical needs assessment, vendor selection and implementation process has benefits that extend way beyond the ROI for the technology in question. The following story is a great example.
minutes), Utah (4 hours, 5 minutes), New York (3 hours, 58 minutes),
and Florida (3 hours, 57 minutes) are among the worst, with wait times
near or exceeding four hours.
But at Spectrum Health Hospital
in Grand Rapids, Mich., where they often run at 105 percent capacity,
they've changed that with a massive ER expansion and more staff.
Patients are now color-coded and fast-tracked on an elaborate computer system, with the wait time from door-to-doctor cut from eight hours to just 23 minutes.
While the focus of the story – and many similar stories – is on technology like restaurant-style pagers for patients, indoor positioning systems, and workflow applications (not to mention a facility expansion and additional staff), it is the operational changes facilitated by a good needs assessment, the right solution(s), and good implementation that deliver dramatic improvements.
These kinds of stories make the news because, well, it's really not that easy to pull off. Pictured right is the Code Blue hospitality pager (labeling not intended for use in hospitals).
[Hat tip: iHealthBeat]
New Link Blog
There's this crazy expectation that consultants know what's really going on, and many of us work hard to live up to meet that expectation. Besides talking with a lot of folks on the phone and at conferences, I track many web sites and news sources. Over the past few years, I've tried a number of different tools for keeping up with the fire hose information flow – various newsreaders, web aggregators, etc. One of my favorites is Netvibes (my current browser home page), and a recent addition, Google Reader.
One of Google Reader's neatest features is the ability to share items from your information flow with others. Here's a link to my shared flow. I'm calling this Tim's Link Blog, and I will be adding it to the blog roll in the right hand column. (While there are no Google ads there now, I expect Google to use this Reader feature as an advertising vehicle eventually – and no, none of the ad revenue will come to me.)
Items in the Link Blog will include things of interest that don't make it into an actual blog post. The topics are wider in scope than the things I write about (I really do try to stay on topic) and all relate to health care, technology, marketing and communications.
Feel free to share your information gathering tools via the comments. And if you have any suggested information sources (especially if they have RSS feeds) let us know. Enjoy!
HIT Software Commoditization: 2 Steps Forward, 1 Step Back
Those left-coast types at the California HealthCare Foundation are planning to turn software developed for a Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange into an open-source software product that
other regional health information organizations (RHIOs) could use.
D.C., forum where people from many organizations discussed the
potential of open-source software for health information exchanges. A
Forrester Research executive said at the forum that the use of
open-source software could result in a 20 percent increase in
nationwide RHIO expansion by 2014.
Given the questionable business model of RHIOs to begin with, an open source software platform could make a real difference – provided it's done right.
$20 million on the software that underlies one of the country’s first
RHIOs. To increase the return on that investment, the foundation might
submit the software to a consortium or other nonprofit that could
license it to other users, said Sam Karp, the foundation’s vice
president of programs. As a result, RHIOs could acquire less expensive
software and easily modify or enhance the system to meet their needs,
forum speakers said.
This sounds great, except it no longer sounds like an open source project, but a “let's package our software for commercial distribution and sell it at a profit” kind of project. There also seems to be confusion about the $20 million in sunk costs to develop their own software and the term “nonprofit.” Oh well. Hat tip to FierceHealthIT who has some additional open source info.
If the CHF RHIO story is the “2 steps forward,” this next bit of news is “one step back.” It seems HIT open source darling Medsphere has lost the faith.
This story is reported by Fred Trotter on his GPL Medicine blog. The GPL in the blog name refers to General Public License, a common type of open source license.
would be proprietarizing VistA. I contacted Medsphere again. This time
I had an email exchange in which MedSphere CTO Steve Shreeve assured me
that Medsphere was going to release code under a FOSS License. Most
importantly Steve cc'ed his response to me to Medsphere CEO Ken Kizer.
In the same exchange, Ken Kizer sent me a note in which he indicted
that he had received Steve's email. You can read this exchange here.
Fred goes on to spell out in a detailed list what's wrong with MedSphere's case against the company's cofounders, and even offer to help.
Raymond [Eric is one of the God Fathers of the open source movement] to see if together we could approach MedSphere and attempt to
broker a peaceful resolution. Eric agreed and I sent a letter to
MedSphere and other interested parties documenting the problem with Medsphere's behavior.
You can read about the attempts that Eric and Fred have made to make peace with Medsphere.
This situation will be an interesting one to watch.
Where Is That? RFID Offers Asset and People Tracking
Yours truly is quoted extensively in this story about RFID applications and adoption in hospitals. Freelancer Elizabeth Roop puts me in good company, along with John Pantano of Radianse and Gregg Malkary of Spyglass Consulting.
RFID offers potential benefits that can impact quality of care, outcomes,
and healthcare delivery costs. Many activities that occur in healthcare
require the coming together of a very specific group of workers and
assets in order to run a diagnostic test or deliver therapy” such
as cardiac catherization, interventional radiology, and gastroenterology
studies, says Tim Gee, principal of Medical Connectivity Consulting.
“Complex logistics are required to pull these events together,
deliver safe and efficacious care, capture charges, and document everything.
So tracking equipment, personnel, and patients throughout the care delivery
process can greatly impact both clinical and financial outcomes.”
The story provides a pretty good overview of the technology and discusses some sample applications.
Medical Sci-Fi Writing Contest
Yes, this is more than a bit off topic… Fellow bloggers at Medgadget are holding a medical science fiction writing competition.
to your identity. We are assembling an all-star judging panel, so you
can be assured your work will be reviewed by accomplished writers,
physicians, and fans of Battlestar Galactica. To help us with grading your papers, Enoch from Tech Medicine, GruntDoc, and Josh from KidneyNotes will be judges.
You must complete your 500-2,500 word medical sci-fi opus by December 1st. Winners will be published on Medgadet.
