PITTSBURGH , January 16, 2008 — The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has developed the first-ever “smart” patient rooms to improve the safety and quality of care. Each Smart Room recognizes doctors and nurses as they enter and shows them on a bedside monitor exactly what they need to know at that moment to care for the patient in the room—from medications due to vital signs and allergies.
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| A monitor in front of the patient in the 'smart room' informs him or her who is entering the room. |
At the same time, patients view a second monitor to immediately learn the identity and role of each caregiver who enters the room. Additional information, including warnings about a patient’s risk of falls or the schedule for pain medication, also is displayed to benefit patients.
“Having the latest patient information right at the bedside, including lab results and medications recently given, helps to ensure the safest and most effective patient care possible,” said Shuja Hassan, M.D., a UPMC geriatrician and Smart Room user. “In a typical hospital setting, this information is not as accessible. What’s more, this system encourages more discussion between physicians and patients regarding important health issues.”
The Smart Room went live in early October and is being tested in six patient rooms at the UPMC Shadyside campus, with plans to expand to a 24-bed unit at the hospital by the end of March. The results of this pilot, including patient benefits and costs, will be evaluated before possible expansion to other UPMC hospitals.
“This innovative project reflects UPMC’s commitment to building the hospital of the future, where every patient gets the right care in the right way every time,” said Elizabeth B. Concordia, executive vice president of UPMC and president of the Hospital and Community Services Division. “As a leading health care provider with a long track record of technological innovation, we are uniquely positioned to create solutions that benefit patients and caregivers.”
Building upon the health system’s extensive electronic medical records technology and using readily available hardware, the Smart Room is designed to fit seamlessly into the daily processes of caring for patients.
Developed over the past six months by a team of clinicians and medical technologists, the system uses ultrasound tracking devices to identify the numerous caregivers whom a patient might encounter on any given day. Each worker is assigned a unique tag—smaller than a pager—that emits a sound, unheard by humans, when the person wearing the tag first enters the Smart Room. An ultrasound detector in the room reads the tag and identifies the caregiver by name and job title, displaying the information on a flat-screen monitor at the foot of the patient’s bed. When a caregiver leaves the room, the information disappears from the screen. In this pilot phase, tags have been assigned to doctors, nurses, nursing assistants, phlebotomists and dietary hosts and hostesses.
At the same time, the system is programmed to retrieve the latest clinical information stored in UPMC’s electronic medical records. To protect patients’ privacy, only limited patient identification and safety information, such as allergies and precautions, are initially presented on a 32-inch, flat panel monitor viewed by clinicians. With the patient’s permission to view more clinical information, the medical staff can change the display with the click of a button on the tag.
The information presented is customized based on each person’s role and need for information. For example, a phlebotomist arriving to draw blood sees only current lab orders and allergy information to prevent the use of latex gloves on a patient with a latex allergy. Since the information is real time, it includes the latest lab orders, potentially reducing needle sticks for patients.
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| Hand sanitizer spotlight |
Another component of each Smart Room is an infrared sensor mounted above the doorway. As anyone enters, it sends a signal to the room’s computer to turn on a spotlight pointed toward the hand sanitizer mounted on the wall. This simple reminder is designed to improve hand hygiene practices for visitors and health care workers alike, an important factor in reducing patient infections.