Medical Device Connectivity and What It Means To You

During the 20th century, human life expectancy has increased by 30 years due to changes to our diets, access to clean water and improved living conditions. Most importantly, better medical care has greatly increased our longevity. With that in mind, there comes a time when someone you love may need special, timely care that can only be provided by professionals with the most accurate patient information available.

As the children of elderly parents, our conce
for their well-being increases as they age. We all want the best for them and wish to make their final years as pleasant as possible. With all the demands in our lives, be it work or family, we need to feel confident that the choices we make are the most beneficial to those that raised us during our greatest time of need. We have to be sure that our loved ones are getting the highest level of care possible.

Huge strides have been made in patient care during the past few decades, thanks to the influx of computerized systems that integrate patient data. The down side to this is too many proprietary devices that are unable to efficiently, and effectively, communicate with each other in a timely and accurate manner. For the healthcare industry to work as designed, these vital technologies need to seamlessly integrate and communicate error-free patient data to and from a centralized database.

The process of manually transcribing data and entering it into a database is the main reason for delays and mistakes in the processing of patient information. Depending on how busy a nurse is, it can take hours for critical information to be entered and stored. It is estimated that 15% of hand-transcribed patient records contain invalid data. The time it takes to enter patient data also detracts from a nurse's ability to care for a patient. It creates an unfortunate paradox, as too much of one is detrimental to the other, yet both are essential to the care of the patient.

A solution was needed to efficiently transmit patient data to the EMR (electronic medical record) and it had to be vendor neutral. Vendor neutral means that the software used in data collection must accommodate the characteristics of all other vendor's equipment and software. It must seamlessly integrate with any existing system, or systems, and send error-free data to the EMR. The software must also be scalable to handle future enhancements as new medical devices and software are continually being developed. Thankfully, software is now available to handle these requirements and is ready for installation on any network or portable device (that meets the minimum operating requirements of the vendor).

The most advanced of the new software solutions effectively tackle the issue of vendor neutrality. When implemented, the data entry responsibility of nurses is now greatly reduced by having patient information transmitted directly from monitoring devices, regardless of the manufacturer, to the EMR. When new patient care devices become available, new device drivers (software that allows higher-lever computer programs to interact with hardware) can be quickly and easily developed. Data may also be collected from stand-alone equipment (those not connected to a network) via connectivity software. It is as simple as installing the software to a PC or clinical workstation and connecting the device via readily available data transmission cables (better vendors will supply a multi-use cable to ensure ease of connectivity). If a device, such as a ventilator, cannot be connected to a wired network, a small fanless PC can be attached to transmit the data wirelessly.

CIS (clinical information system) compatibly has also been factored in. A CIS is a system used by a hospital to manage its medical, administrative, financial, legal and service elements. One may think of a CIS as the most aligned with patient care. The most commo
CISs now supported are: Epic, MEDITECH, CPSI, Siemens, HMS and Allscripts. One may also take comfort in the fact the best new device interface software was developed with the FDA's “quality system regulation controls” in mind, and can be integrated into these four critical areas of patient data collection and retrieval:

Proprietary Gateways and Networksr
Mobile Devices with Hardwarer
Mobile Devices without Hardware
PCs in Patient Rooms

The medical software industry has also taken alert management into consideration. Superior alert management solutions can be installed in parallel with the device connectivity software for ease of integration. Here are some common features offered in properly designed alert management software:

Routes device alarms to the appropriate personr
Presents the device’s alert message in text form, which is less distractingr
Is compatible with any nurse call system or alarm extension method (such as email and smart phones)

What this means to you is that the software can be tailored to a healthcare provider’s established workflow and meet industry standards. This enables healthcare providers to make an informed decision on patient care based on receiving all the relevant alarms in one place and in a format that is easy to read. This more efficient approach can also help to reduce what is known as “alarm fatigue.” Alarm fatigue results from over exposure to electronic signaling noise, which can cause healthcare workers to unintentionally tune out patient monitor alarms and not respond in a timely manner.

Now that these advancements in device connectivity software and alert management exist, and you know what it can do for those needing the best medical care possible, check with your chosen healthcare provider to make sure that they have implemented them, or that they are aware that such options are available. If you are familiar with this software already, and are in the healthcare industry, feedback on these new systems, or any other concerns not covered, would be welcomed.