Written by Laurie Blount, Director of Medical Device Integration, Iatric Systems
ED nurses at Hanover Hospital in Hanover, Pennsylvania, love having the ability to transfer vital signs electronically from their GE monitors to their EHR.
That’s what Richard Clark, IT Project Manager at Hanover Hospital, recently told us. In fact, he said it even makes them smile. That sure made my day. So, I thought I’d share their story with you, since we all could use a smile on a Monday…
Before I forget, if you’d like hear their story (not just read about it in this post), we’ll be covering it during a live webcast demonstration of Accelero Connect on December 9th at 2:00 p.m. ET. You can register to attend the webcast by clicking the image below:
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GE Vital Sign Monitors
Hanover Hospital uses GE vital sign monitors exclusively throughout their facility. On their Critical Care Unit (CCU), GE equipment was already interfaced to the hospital’s EHR, but they wanted to replace that legacy medical device connectivity system because it was no longer a good fit (more on that later in this post).
They were also about to open a new Heart and Vascular Outpatient Unit (HVOU), where newly hired nursing staff (who previously worked at other cutting edge facilities) expected automated vital signs documentation, not manual data entry.
And their busy Emergency Department desperately needed to free up staff to focus more time on patient care.
We recently published a Success Story featuring Hanover Hospital’s journey. It’s filled with details about all of these areas (CCU, HVOU, and the ED). The main focus of this blog post is the Emergency Department, but if you’d like to read the details about those other areas, you can download Hanover Hospital’s Success Story using the button below:
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Flu Season Visits the Emergency Department
Last winter, Pennsylvania residents were hit hard by the flu. I mean really hard. There were so many patients in Hanover’s ED that even the VP of Nursing was throwing on scrubs and helping out at times.
We all know what happens to vital signs that are keyed into the computer right away when an Emergency Department is that busy. In the midst of the chaos, it’s super easy to hit the wrong key(s) and enter the wrong value(s).
More often than not, though, keying those vitals into the computer sinks to the bottom of the priority list when it’s that busy, possibly left for hours until there’s a lull when nurses can catch up. In the meantime, no one can see patients’ vital signs online.
Now, medical device connectivity is saving them time, giving providers immediate access to the vitals they need to give patients the right care, and freeing up nurses to spend more time with patients. Richard said, “The nurses in the ED are ecstatic because they don’t have to manually key patient data into the computer. Whenever we can get the nurses in the ED to smile, that’s a really good thing.”
And they aren’t the only ones smiling. Because their productivity has improved, Richard told us, “The Vice President of Nursing thanked me personally, and the Clinical Educator was all smiles.”
Scalability
Before Hanover Hospital implemented Accelero Connect, they used another medical device connectivity solution, but it didn’t filter patients well (at least not without a lot of customization). Without customization, CCU staff would see all of the patients in the hospital, instead of just the ones in their care. So the legacy system was running on the CCU (with customization), but the hospital couldn’t easily expand it to other areas.
Richard told us that Hanover chose Accelero Connect because of its scalability. It provides better mapping and filtering, and it can integrate other types of devices — smart pumps, ventilators, etc. — with Hanover's EHR.
Final Thoughts
Do you use GE vital sign monitors? Do you want to integrate more than just your vital signs with your EHR? If so, I hope you’ll read Hanover Hospital’s Success Story, and then join us via webcast on December 9th at 2:00 p.m. ET.
If I don’t publish another post before December 31st, I wish you all a happy, healthy holiday season that’s filled with joy and love.
