“Q: How is the hospital of the future different from a typical hospital today?
… The hospital of the future seeks to deliver high quality efficient care; that goal doesn’t change. However, new tools and methods are making it possible to achieve ever-higher performance in four areas:
• Serving the right patient in the right place, and that doesn’t always mean at the hospital.
• Making it easier for patients to navigate and access the hospital.
• Making it easier for caregivers to provide care at the hospital.
• Becoming highly reliable …
That means if a machine can perform a function safer, faster and better, we should automate it and allow humans to focus on patient- and family-centered care …
Q: … how are you already incorporating automation into the hospital’s processes?
There are several ways, but one of the most important concepts is that of interoperability … we know through a real-time locating system which nurse has entered the patient room to check the patient’s vitals. There is a fixed bedside monitor at the head of every bed, which once the patient’s vitals are taken and checked by the nurse, automatically sends them to the patient’s electronic chart. If there are abnormal results or abnormal cardiac monitoring results and a certain level of concern, other members of the team including the physician can automatically see the results … with real-time closed loop communications we can see whether the provider has accepted the results … All of this is safer and faster, and prevents staff from having to perform manual steps.
Q: How does building the “hospital of the future” with a central technology hub impact care?
… We need that function for patients in the hospital and those in their homes. This is a whole new way of providing care by using data and digital technologies to help with early warning of changing patient conditions and of process breakdowns …
Our hospital team understands the opportunities digital capabilities present for patient care. A number of our physicians and staff come to the table to help us plan technology that will improve patient care and care delivery process. They see technology and analytical data as a benefit. That’s part of a cultural transformation and understanding that digital technology when properly applied improves patient care …
Q: Is this concept something other hospitals could implement?
… A bold vision needs to be a hospitalwide commitment. Our senior team and program and physician leaders committed 100 percent to our mission. You must have a committed team that’s nimble enough to make changes quickly to benefit from technology changes. You must continue to build on a digital vision each and every day or quickly you will become yesterday’s hospital.”
These foregoing excerpts from the July 26, 2017, Becker’s Health IT & CIO Review article entitled What mission control will look like at the hospital of the future by (http://bit.ly/2u0WCba) describes operating capabilities and characteristics of digital medical practice and healthcare delivery. Most of what is described is achievable with cloud-based software and little or no impact on provider resources and facilities using an information technology (IT) solution compliant with The Cloud Healthcare Appliance Real-Time Solution as a Service (CHARTSaaS) reference architecture (RA). A CHARTSaaS RA-compliant IT solution provides an integrated development environment in the cloud, available by subscription, that healthcare provider subject matter experts can use to create IT applications a.k.a. “apps” for cognitive support, with little or no expert help from IT staff. Such apps can operate as systems of engagement with professional providers and their patients to leverage on-premise legacy electronic health record and hospital information systems (EHRs/HISs) using secure and intelligent interoperability to automate such problematic and error-prone use cases as differential diagnosis and treatment planning. Furthermore, such apps are easily modifiable and should be to meet The Joint Commission Standards for continuous process improvement and optimization.
Please validate this CHARTSaaS RA proposition to your own satisfaction by reading the white paper at http://bit.ly/2vmK1Rx, viewing the tutorials posted on YouTube (http://bit.ly/2sVajvS and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5OtbCCDNLs) and also by reviewing the details of CHARTSaaS™ and the CHARTSaaS RA™ in these presentations:
https://mix.office.com/embed/19g5mpp3f6qkx
https://mix.office.com/embed/1bp3nuiwdjk86
https://mix.office.com/watch/o2y82frum3lt
Healthcare providers will benefit significantly from appreciating and then applying a CHARTSaaS RA-compliant IT solution. To do so will mitigate medical mistakes (currently the third leading cause of patient deaths. per Makaray and Daniel (http://bit.ly/1rtW6Sa); thereby minimizing patient adverse events and optimizing clinical case outcomes while maximizing the cost-effectiveness of care and treatment, and also accelerating the accrual and facilitating the application of medical knowledge.