(Newswire.net — December 29, 2014) Brentwood, Tennessee — In 2013 the Hospital Safety Score, a public service provided by The Leapfrog Group, an independent nonprofit organization, estimated that up to 440,000 Americans are dying annually from preventable hospital errors. It shows many hospitals are making significant progress in reducing such errors but overall progress is slow.
There is strong evidence to suggest that sending data automatically from bedside medical devices into the respective electronic medical record goes a long way to alleviating human error in the healthcare setting. This innovative technical advance is known as Bedside Medical Device Integration (BMDI) and is promoted by the healthcare reform act through an initiative called Meaningful Use.
Meaningful Use is using certified electronic health record (EHR) technology to improve quality, safety and efficiency within the healthcare setting. It also strives to reduce health disparities and engage patients and family. The promotion of the improvement to care coordination and population and public health is also central to its mission. Financial incentives are available to any healthcare institute that incorporates BMDI technology into the healthcare workplace. The more clinical data that is available electronically for a patient, the greater is the financial reimbursement for that healthcare institute.
BMDI is relatively new in healthcare. It refers to the process where clinical data is electronically transferred from medical devices, such as ventilators, hemodynamic monitors, infusion pumps and anesthesia machines into the patient’s record within the clinical information system.
According to Éilís Crean, President of CHIC Inc, a pioneering consulting firm specializing in BMDI implementations, device integration provides a way to simplify a clinicians workflow.
“It enhances the benefits of any EMR and this in turn increases its adoption by clinical staff” says Crean, the only free-lance BMDI technical consultant in the USA. “The clinician can focus more on direct patient care because the clinical data, for example vital signs, can be validated very quickly thereby submitting them to the patient’s record. This eliminates the manual entry step which improves patient care and safety. Consequently, the amount of hospital errors are greatly reduced”
BMDI technology is very complex. It is not standardized, and this makes it costly and difficult to implement. Many EHR implementations have failed because BMDI can strain the hospital network and this in turn will slow down system response times.
CHIC Inc has specialized in BMDI implementations for almost a decade and has worked with the country’s leading EMRs and device connectivity solution vendors. They have been
involved in solving complex problems and been instrumental in the design of some of the BMDI architecture that is being used throughout the present day healthcare setting.
“The key to a successful BMDI implementation is expertise in mapping clinical data elements using analytic and customized processes” says Crean. “And from a clinical point of view, the most important consideration with a BMDI implementation is to make sure it complements the existing nursing workflow. Remember, clinical practice was there long before technology and our job is to enhance that skill and make a nurse’s life easier”
For more information on CHIC Inc, please email eiliscrean@gmail.com