Bronx, N.Y.-based Riverdale also purchased from Quinton a spirometer-which measures lung function-and integrated it with the EKG device and electronic medical records system. The practice previously referred patients elsewhere for the $110 tests; it now conducts them in-house three to five times a week.
The electronic record/medical device integration has delivered clinical and financial benefits, but it's also brought home how the lack of such integration is holding Riverdale back, Maselli says.
The practice still must scan or manually enter information from other medical devices into its electronic records system, a task that's time-consuming, expensive and risky in terms of patient safety. Maselli is trying to get Amicore to integrate with the practice's CBC, or complete blood count, machine. Right now, blood count results are printed and scanned into the electronic record.
"One of the problems with electronic records is that scanning is very cumbersome," Maselli says. "The less scanning you have to do, the better."
Integration has been an ongoing concern as health care organizations make strides toward automation. Many integration efforts have focused on tying in large applications-such as laboratory and hospital information systems-with electronic records that are designed to be a receptacle for clinical, administrative and financial data.
There has been less attention-and less time and resources-devoted to linking electronic records to medical devices, the literal fingers on the pulse of the care delivery process.
Old practice, new adherents
Integration of medical devices with clinical information systems isn't a new idea. San Diego-based Sharp HealthCare nearly two decades ago integrated heart monitors with electronic records software from CliniComp International. At the time, Sharp HealthCare was a developmental partner with San Diego-based CliniComp.
What's new is the growing number of medical devices that are becoming computerized enough to support integration with electronic records, says William Spooner, senior vice president and CIO at Sharp HealthCare.
The delivery system, for example, has started a project to integrate glucometers, devices that measure blood sugar for diabetics-with the CliniComp software, automatically capturing data and storing it in the patient record. "That offers huge advantages in terms of accuracy and timeliness," Spooner says.
As the possibilities for electronic record/medical device integration increase, however, roadblocks arise. While there is an emerging awareness among some providers of the value of such integration, not every provider shares the same level of enthusiasm, says Peggy Congin, R.N., a nursing informatics consultant with Beacon Partners Inc., Weymouth, Mass.
"Medical device integration may be very important to a gastrointestinal specialist, but a cardiologist may not have any use for it," Congin says.
In addition, integration is never an easy task, and integrating electronic records and medical devices is made harder by the fact that health care software and medical device vendors often cannot-or will not-provide much help. But there are ways to ease the task of integrating electronic record systems and medical devices, experts say.
Providers embarking on an integration effort would be wise to start with medical devices that display only numeric data because they generally are easier to integrate, Congin counsels. A vital signs monitor, for instance, gives numeric readings of such functions as pulse rate, blood pressure and respiration rate.
Eyes on the monitor
For Edward Hospital & Health System in Naperville, Ill., integration was all in the numbers. The delivery system began its electronic records/medical device integration efforts by linking patient monitors from Orlando, Fla.-based Invivo Research Inc. and Bothell, Wash.-based Philips Medical Systems to its records system from Medical Information Technology Inc. of Westwood, Mass., known as Meditech.
The hospital has since integrated glucometers and a laboratory information system from Misys Healthcare Systems, Raleigh, N.C. The Misys system, in turn, is integrated with the records system.
As a result, patient values, including blood pressure, respiratory rate, pulse rate, blood oxygen levels and blood sugar levels, automatically feed into an electronic medical record that physicians can easily access.
"You have electronic information that used to be on a chart at the end of the patient's bed," says Mary Mars, director of software applications, delivery and support. "The physician formerly had to call the nurse or visit the patients to get the information."
Another effective strategy for electronic records/device interfacing projects is emerging in critical care areas, says Kimberly Van Duyse, R.N., director of clinical systems at Prince William Health System, Manassas, Va. That's because physicians and nurses in those areas will more easily accept the technology.
"Clinicians in non-critical areas have a different outlook on this," she explains. "They don't need to capture vital signs data as often. So they get it in their heads that when they need to collect vital signs, they want to do it themselves."
Anesthesiologists at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital understand better than most the importance of linking electronic records and medical devices, says David Lubarsky, M.D., chair of the anesthesia department.
"We're monitoring 50 variables in complex cases," Lubarsky says. The anesthesiologists used to write down data from the devices and enter the information into CareSuite, an anesthesia information system from Picis Inc., Wakefield, Mass., that includes a perioperative electronic record.
To eliminate the risks associated with manual entry, the hospital integrated the perioperative record with a number of patient monitoring systems. Patient information such as pulse rate, blood pressure, respiratory volume and rate, blood oxygen level, and brain wave data-which helps determine how sedated a patient is-now automatically populate the CareSuite database.
Be the first to comment on this post using the section below.