Know exactly where to find the equipment you need with RadarFind. Your computer screen displays all the IV pumps, wheelchairs, or any equipment in the hospital that have a unique RFID tag. RadarFind even shows the equipment status - clean and available for use, in use with a patient, or needs cleaning.

The Social Insurance Institution of Finland (KELA) has selected EMC to build a new centralised national patient record archive to securely store over 5m health records in what will become Finland’s largest database. The project aims to deliver an electronic prescription service later this year, followed by the completion of a comprehensive patient record and image archive in 2009.

HIMSS Analytics, the authoritative source on EMR Adoption trends, devised the EMR Adoption Model (EMRAM) to track EMR progress at hospitals and health systems. The EMRAM scores hospitals in the HIMSS Analytics Database (derived from the Dorenfest IHDS Database™) on their progress in completing the 8 stages to creating a paperless patient record environment. Hospital executives that participate in HIMSS Analytics’ Annual Study can access their EMRAM score and compare it to similar facilities (by bed size, patient days, etc.) as well as compare their score to their state’s average score.

Crazy surgical mistakes make headlines. But you rarely hear of the common but less sensational errors that kill or injure millions every year. Last year, more Americans died from medical errors than were killed in the Vietnam War. Many of these errors could have been prevented if doctors only had the information they needed  about the patients they were treating.

A great deal has been written about the electronic health record/electronic patient record (EHR/EPR) without any clear agreement about what it is or even what functions it is supposed to serve. This can make rational discussion difficult. Who is allowed to enter and alter data for items entered personally and by their own organisations and data entered in other organisations?

Traditionally, pharmacists have had little ability to impact patient adherence to their medications after they leave the store. A new system from Parata allows pharmacists to offer patients all their medication in sealed packets that are sorted by day and dosing time. Each onePAC dose is printed with the patient's name, day and time of dose, medication names, and other prescribing information. OnePAC uses Parata's new PACMED technology, which can automatically prepare up to 50 multi-dose packages per minute, and comes in strips of up to a 90-day supply.

DoseCalc^® OnLine DataBase of Oncology Regimens and calculation software contains many common combination treatment regimens for solid tumors and adult leukemias and is designed to serve as a concise database reference for use by oncology healthcare professionals.

DoseCalc OnLine is intended as a general reference only to supplement the existing knowledge of healthcare professionals. While the DoseCalc OnLine provides resources for quick access to referenced protocols, it should be recognized that many combination cancer regimens have variations.

Although not really related to medical informatics, yet these hospital simulation games do give you a peek at what happens in a hospital. I list a few of these simulators here.

At the World of Health IT annual congress, Royal Philips Electronics (NYSE: PHG; AEX: PHI) today unveiled CliniScape, its first Mobile Clinical Assistant. The handheld device enables doctors and nurses to wirelessly connect to patient information stored in a hospital’s electronic medical records, improving patient care at the bedside. It incorporates a large, high-quality pen-controlled touchscreen, RFID and barcode scanning, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and a digital camera.

 

Typical non-secure “point of care” carts without electronic security require nurses to take 1 patient’s medications at a time.

A nurse with 6 patient assignments has to make up to 12 trips to and from the Central Medication Cart or Automated Dispensing Machine per “round”. The combination of a central medication cart with a non-secure computer station creates an inefficient nursing workflow. AcuDose®/Pyxis® machines are excellent for pharmacy control but can create an inefficient nursing workflow.