Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering, Inc., announced that Long Beach Memorial Medical Center in Long Beach, California, has successfully interfaced the Amelior EDTracker patient and asset tracking system to their Epic emergency department documentation system. The interface provides real-time patient location information to their documentation system without requiring manual data entry. The automatic tracking system has been in use in the department since 2002 and has assisted the department in reducing patient wait times and length of stay in a department that now treats over 90,000 patient visits annually.
The Amelior EDTracker system automatically tracks patient, staff and movable medical equipment location through an interface to a facility's choice of real-time location network including active-RFID, infrared, ultrasound, ultra-wideband, Wi-Fi and ZigBee. Using emergency department workflow intelligence, the tracking system measures and interprets location, movement and interactions between people and equipment to recognize patient care milestones. Additional intelligence recognizes the significance of events and alerts the appropriate caregivers. By visualizing the real-time care progression of patients based on interfaces to RTLS and department information systems, caregivers are able to manage their workflows more efficiently. This enables departments facing rising patient volumes to increase their effective capacity. Integrated reporting tools including a real-time dashboard and on-demand reports help departments to optimize patient flow further.
After implementing an emergency department documentation system from Epic Systems Corporation, Long Beach Memorial Medical Center added an interface to the Amelior EDTracker system. The tracking system provides location, room and staff assignments, tag information, as well as patient left ED status. With this information the emergency department clinicians have more complete information on patient care progression to anticipate and manage their workflows without having to wait to confirm this data and enter it manually.
"We are pleased to be able to exchange patient information between our automatic tracking and documentation systems," said Carol Nachreiner RN, executive director of emergency services. "The addition of real-time patient location as well as room and staff assignments will help us to continue to operate as efficiently as possible."
The Amelior EDTracker system is capable of integrating with any hospital or department system through the Amelior Interface Gateway. Using HL-7 formats including v.3, data can be shared between systems and even transformed from one format to another (e.g., HL-7 and XML) within a single point of management for ease of use. Advanced notification capabilities enable clinicians to remain connected to patient status updates and results in real-time through pages, email and text messages.
"Delivering real-time location information in the context of a patient's care progression adds significant value to documentation systems," said Tony Marsico, president and CEO of PCTS. "Typically ED information systems (EDIS) rely on manual data entry to update patient location status. By interfacing with a PCTS automatic tracking system, caregivers do not have to delay care until information is manually entered. And they have more complete information on care progression to anticipate and manage their workflows."
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