Real-time patient status system replaces the good old handwritten whiteboards

Oct 18, 2011 13:45 GMT  ·  By

HP collaborates with hospitals on a variety of projects, in this case the advancements of patient status system recording and updating, the partner being Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford.

As consumer technology progresses, it only makes sense that IT and gadgets make their way to other fields as well.

One of said fields is that of medicine and healthcare, where HP just announced a milestone, of sorts.

More specifically, as part of a collaboration with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, HP launched the Patient-Centered Dashboard.

Meant to replace the handwritten whiteboards that hospital nursing units use, it looks up electronic medical records and should help with response speed and such.

The dashboard has its own set of lights, which can relay the level of urgency of attention needed by turning green, yellow or red.

With this to prevent life-threatening complications in intensive care units, human error should be minimized in medical settings.

“Electronic medical records are data-rich but information-poor,” said Dr. Natalie Pageler, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Stanford University School of Medicine and project manager for the Patient-Centered Dashboard at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.

“This pilot is a first step in translating the tremendous volumes of data we now have available in a hospital’s electronic medical record system into practical information that can guide clinical decision making at the bedside of every patient.”

The dashboard will be able to alert physicians and nurses to necessary procedures, like moving central venous catheters, changing from intravenous to oral medication, etc. It should also help with notifications or mentioning what sedatives should be used, etc.

“By getting better information into the hands of caregivers, technology has the potential not only to improve lives, but also to save them,” said Jaap Suermondt, director, Healthcare Research, HP Labs, HP.

“Through our collaboration with Packard Children’s Hospital, we were able to develop a technology solution that finds and combines information at risk of being overlooked deep inside electronic medical records, and bring it to the eyes of the entire care team, ultimately allowing them to make critical decisions and help prevent complications.”