Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Decision support
Emergency
Admission
The BMD allows administrators, clinicians, and managers
to easily access, analyze, and display real-time patient and
bed-availability information. It provides:
On-demand historical, real-time, and predictive
reports
Alerts, warnings, and recommendations
The ability to share information throughout the
enterprise
Provides point-in-time predicted bed availability
The ability for decision-makers to move easily from
''big-picture'' analyses to transaction details
Placement
Stay
Discharge
Elective
Admission
The Bed Management Dashboard
Figure 5.5-2 The BMD across the Enterprise: The BMD interacts
with all departments throughout the continuum of care
(e.g., admitting, ED, OR, ICU, and administration).
a constant basis. It is an enterprise-wide system that
directly and indirectly interacts with all departments
throughout the continuum of care (see
Figure 5.5-2
).
This results in:
Timely data driven decisions
Improved decisions regarding staffing levels
Reduce reliance on third-party staffing companies to
supplement in-house staff
Improved crisis management during rapidly fluctuating
census levels
Improved ability to negotiate contracts
with payers
The BMD has been running at Hartford Hospital since
April 2001. It has over 900 trained users, and it can be
accessed on the more than 2500 work stations throughout
the organization. The system is interfaced to the Hospi-
tal's ADT Information System (Siemens/SMS), pagers,
phones, and e-mail.
Process improvement
Process improvement is an outcome and benefit of
a centralized Bed Management Process that maintains
clinical input and incorporates technological support.
The BMD streamlines the process of admitting, trans-
ferring, and discharging patients by:
Optimizing patient placement processes
Increasing staff efficiency (e.g., by reducing
administrative expenses by eliminating paperwork
and phone volume)
Improving utilization of beds (e.g., by reducing
inappropriate usage of inpatient beds without payer
authorization, 23
รพ
hour observation of outpatients
by automatic alerts)
Optimizing utilization of material resources (e.g.,
monitored beds and negative pressure rooms)
Managing patient flow in the event of ADTsystem or
network failure (disaster recovery)
Enabling real-time and predictive capacity
management
Providing clinical attributes to supplement ADT data
(e.g., telemetry and near nursing stations)
This results in:
Reduced emergency room overcrowding
Reduced OR delays
Increased physician and staff satisfaction
Improved patient flow
Time savings
Better treatment of patients and improved customer
satisfaction
Reduced diversions and lost admissions
Increased revenues and decreased expenses
Reduced staff
An air traffic control tower for beds
In many ways, the BMD is similar to an air traffic control
tower. Like a real air traffic control tower, this application
is real-time and mission-critical. It must handle sched-
uled and emergency events. The system assists with the
clinical and business decision process that occur when
a patient needs to be assigned to a specific bed location.
Collectively, this system provides organizations with an
array of enabling technologies to:
Schedule/reserve/request patient bed assignments
Assign and transfer patients from the ED and/or
other clinical areas such as intensive care units,
medical/surgical units, OR, and post-anesthesia care
units
Reduce and eliminate dependency on phone calls to
communicate patient and bed requirements
Reduce and eliminate paper processes to manage
varying census levels
Apply SPC and ''Six Sigma'' methodologies to
manage occupancy and patient diversion
