Interoperability Solution Connects EHR
By Wendy Grafius, contributing writer
"Minnesota's Children’s Hospital" anticipates more consistency and accuracy in medication practices
The St. Paul Hospital campus of Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota has connected its Alaris System EHR with Cerner’s CareAware iBus1 to pre-populate infusion orders directly from the Cerner Millennium EHR. With this technology implemented at Children’s Minneapolis campus in 2012, Children’s is the first pediatric hospital system in the U.S. to achieve smart pump interoperability.
Known as “Minnesota’s Children’s Hospital” since 1924, Children’s campuses offer a combined 381 beds, of which 225 are critical care. Independent and nonprofit, the two hospitals provide care through more than 12,000 inpatient visits and 200,000 emergency room visits per year. Additionally more than 1100 members of Children’s clinical staff provide care at several outpatient facilities. With the largest pediatric pain and palliative care program in North America, the health system also cares for up to 90 children in their homes each day.
Practicing Patient-and-Family Centered Care, Children’s collaborates with families to provide the best care possible for its young patients. The hospital system has the largest high-risk neonatal referral center in the region with some of the nation’s best outcomes, being honored by U.S. News & World Report as a 2013-2014 Best Children’s Hospital in neonatology, cardiology and heart surgery, and pulmonology. In addition, both campuses were awarded elite distinction by Leapfrog as a 2012 Top Hospital for quality and efficiency.
With IV medication errors two times more likely than other medication routes to cause patient harm as well as accounting for about 60 percent of the most serious and costly mistakes, the hospital sought to reduce the risk of these bedside errors. “Since implementing interoperability last year at our Minneapolis campus, we have seen on average an increase of 57 percent in smart pump drug safety parameters utilization and we are sustaining at this level,” said Bobbie Carroll, senior director of patient safety and informatics at Children’s. “We have also seen a 37 percent decline in safety learning reports related to medication administration events. The interoperability solution is definitely making our hospitals safer for both large volume and syringe infusions.”
Children’s critical care patients typically require a substantial volume of high-risk infusions. By allowing bi-directional communication between the infusion pump and the EHR, the solution ensures more consistency and accuracy in medication practices. As opposed to manual programming, the pump is pre-programmed via barcode scanning by utilizing Cerner’s Point of Care Medication Administration solution. Real-time data helps Children’s staff view infusion status through Cerner’s CareAware Infusion Management 1 with nursing, pharmacy, and ICU dashboards. This greater system connectivity and interoperability is helping Children’s deliver better patient care.
SOURCE: 4-traders