Patient Monitor

A clinical information system designed by clinicians for clinicians

Doctors at Addenbrooke's Hospital recognised the need to respond to the BMA (2004) guidelines and improve patient safety by minimizing the risks from the many hazards of clinical handover, particularly out of hours, and provide effective continuity of information.

A collaboration of: clinical leads from Cambridge University Hospitals Trust, Hospital Information specialists, and our IT Health system experts have developed a web-based clinical information system, which is SIMPLE to operate, aids compliance with EWTD - hospitals at night requirements, and improves patient safety and effective clinical handover.

Patient Monitor displays up-to-the-minute patient information recorded across disparate systems in a single view, and allows tasks, communications and handover notes to be recorded and viewed according to clinically defined priorities, therefore eliminating the need for time consuming, repetitative data entry.

Dianne Nixon, IT Programme Manager, Cambridge University Hospital Trust

The Benefits:

• No clerical input required - efficient, labour saving and reduces human error
• Comprehensive clinical information - Informing clinical decision making
• No lost/forgotten patients - backup for shift handover interruptions
• Customized views to meet clinical need - unstable patient, team or other user defined views
• Real time updates from external systems - reduced duplication, increased clinical effectiveness
• Enhanced risk Management - improved quality patient care and safety
• Automatic alerts updates to PAS - able to integrate with 3rd party systems
• Audited, archived, and easily retrieved - allowing retrospective clinical research
• Search facility - allowing efficient location of patients
• Easy to record 'to do' tasks - improve MDT communication, handover and summary information

Aggregated patient information includes:

• Current admission data from PAS
• Demographic and alert data from PAS
• Result information from an external data source
• Drug and diagnosis data from an external data source
• Supplementary clinical and administrative patient data maintained solely within the Patient Monitor: i.e. handover notes, communications, tasks, problems, care and dependency level, avoiding multiple system log on
• MEWS scores from an external data source

Clinicians are supported by the following functionality:

• User-defined display/print of patient lists using filter criteria. e.g. hospital at night view
• Consolidation of accurate and up-to-date patient information
• Ability to record additional patient data used only in Patient Monitor with history and auditing
• Access to 3rd party systems
• Access to Electronic Prescribing and Diagnosis system
• Ability to update PAS alert data within Patient Monitor with auditing
• Facility to create patient transfers and view patient transfer history
• Capable of adopting another system's security framework
• Provision to configure additional care levels and significant alerts
• Facility to monitor patients prior to admission and continue monitoring discharged patients

How does Patient Monitor work?

Patient Monitor is a web based clinical information system with no client-side installation. Web services are used to seamlessly exchange data between the Patient Monitor and existing systems. In some cases a two-way interface enables users to update data held on other systems via the Patient Monitor (subject to analysis). Specific Patient Monitor data, along with comprehensive audit information, is stored in a secure Microsoft SQL Server environment. User roles are defined by system administrators and have the additional capability of sitting within a 3rd party security framework, reducing the need for multiple logons.

Patient Monitor's potential for even safer clinical handover

Patient Monitor is constantly evolving as clinicians appreciate more possibilities for its use and request further enhancements and additional functionality. All this is possible because of its robust design (detailed functional specifications are available on request). Clinicians can define system views to meet their own operational procedures. Typically these might include all patients for a given specialty or ward, just high dependency or recent admissions.

Potential developments could include:

• All patients with MRSA
• Liverpool Care Pathway patients
• Post operative patients
• Discharge summaries

Remember... as clinicians, you can set your own preferences on how the data is filtered. Integration with further external data sources can be achieved by additional web services, enabling more and more functionality to be deployed through a common user interface. Patient Monitor can also be deployed on mobile devices.