Related Items
Christiana Hospital Honored for Groundbreaking Project
March 2006
Before November 2004, Christiana Hospital had a hard time keeping track of the 100 or more patients in its emergency department. Manual data entry often lagged patient movement. The hospital's research found that multiple phone calls and walking tours to canvass the ED were needed to locate about 20% of admitted patients.
For Linda Laskowski-Jones, R.N., director of trauma, emergency and aeromedical services, knowing where ED patients were 80% of the time wasn't nearly good enough for her and other nurse managers.
"Imagine distraught family members coming in and asking 'where's my mother?'" Laskowski-Jones says. "In the past, in the time it took to get information into the ED system the patient might have been moved more than once. We would send the family to a room but their mom might be in radiology getting a CT scan. Now we have a higher level of confidence that we know where patients are."
The Newark, Del.-based hospital solved its patient tracking problem by implementing a passive tracking system using wireless infrared and radio frequency identification technology. In the 12-month period after implementation, the hospital reported a 20- to 45- minute reduction in length of stay for patients treated and released, and about 35 minutes for patients admitted, among other measurable results.
Christiana's efforts earned the 780-bed facility Health Data Management magazine's inaugural Nursing Information Technology Innovation Award.
The hospital, which is one of two in the Wilmington, Del.-based Christiana Care Health System, has plenty of emergency patients to track. Christiana Hospital's ED treated about 94,500 patients in 2005 in its Level 1 adult and pediatric trauma center.
It has 76 treatment rooms and seven triage assessment areas. Patients are seen by any of 43 attending and 53 resident physicians and the ED staff includes more than 200 emergency nurses, technicians and clerks.
No input
Keeping up with patients meant the former tracking system needed a makeover. "We needed a passive tracking solution that didn't require a staff member to input most of the information," Laskowski-Jones says, "and that would be accepted by all levels of personnel."
Laskowski-Jones began researching tracking technology in 2001, but could only find systems that required manual data entry and other staff input to maintain. The search would stretch on for two years. "I became aware in 2003 that passive technology existed," she says. "I found some that were marketed well, but there were no successful implementations."
Then one day in fall 2003, out of the blue stepped a salesperson representing three vendors of passive tracking technology: Patient Care Technology Systems LLC, Mission Viejo, Calif., which markets the Amelior EDTracker application; Versus Technology Inc., Traverse City, Mich., a supplier of tracking hardware including badges and sensors; and ADT Security Services Inc., Boca Raton, Fla., a vendor of anti-theft systems including door alarms.
Together, the three technologies seemed to meet Laskowski-Jones's criteria, so the next step was to check out existing implementations.
She assembled a group of ED leaders for a presentation of the EDTracker software from Patient Care Technology Systems. "Then we did some site visits and they all seemed very satisfied and felt the vendor came through for them," she explains.
A project steering committee including Jones, the ED nurse manager, the physician director and an I.T. representative then recommended the EDTracker system to the delivery system's leadership group. That group, comprising C-level executives, endorsed the project and agreed to fund it.
Marketplace
- About Us
- Advertising/Media Kit
- Reprints
- Editorial Calendar
- Contact Us
- Customer Service
- Privacy Statement
©2008 HealthDataManagement and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.
SourceMedia is an Investcorp company.
Use, duplication, or sale of this service, or data contained herein, is strictly prohibited.
