ECRI Teleconference April 19th @ 1:00 pm EDT

Award Winning Innovations in Health Technology Management

A Web Conference Presented by ECRI Institute
April 19, 2012
1:00 to 2:30 p.m. EST

Each year, ECRI Institute honors one of its member healthcare institutions with the Health Devices™ Achievement Award for excellence in health technology management.  The award recognizes an exceptional initiative to improve patient safety, reduce costs, increase efficiency, or otherwise facilitate better strategic management of health technology.

Our 2011 winner, Grande Ronde Hospital, a 25-bed critical access hospital in rural Oregon, will be presenting its ground-breaking telemedicine initiative in ECRI Institute’s April 19, 2012 web conference, “Award Winning Innovations in Health Technology Management.”

With the help of its RP7 mobile robotic platform, Grande Ronde provides remote consultations that connect Oregon doctors to consultants, physicians, and patients as far as 1,800 miles away, saving hundreds of thousands in transfer costs and inconvenience.  Grande Ronde’s innovative telemedicine program led the Oregon Medical Board to adopt a new rule allowing physicians to practice across state lines.  Their story is featured in a new Modern Healthcare white paper, The Path to Interoperability.  

Also presenting will be the two 2011 finalists. One is Boston Medical Center, which developed a novel cart-mounted point-of-care training system used both to validate alarm policy changes on telemetry monitors and train clinicians on those changes.  The project has become an instrumental part of the hospital’s alarm management program.  The other finalist is Indian River Medical Center, which has implemented a remote telemetry monitoring program for stable cardiac patients on medical surgical units.  Indian River has seen a significant decrease in patient transfers to critical care since its telemetry program was implemented.

Presenters will discuss:
- Steps to developing award-winning initiatives from concept to desired outcomes
- Methods for measuring the success of their initiative related to patient safety, efficiency, and sustainable cost reduction
- Securing project funding and buy-in from hospital leadership

Moderator:
James P. Keller, Jr, MS, Vice President, Health Technology Evaluation and Safety, ECRI Institute
Presenters:
Douglas Romer, Executive Director, Patient Care Services, Grande Ronde Hospital, La Grande, Oregon
James Piepenbrink, Director of Clinical Engineering, Boston Medical Center, Boston, Massacheusetts
Kathryn Clark, RN, CCRN, CNML, Nurse Manager, Intermediate Cardiac Care and Cardiac Stepdown Units, Indian River Medical Center, Vero Beach, Florida

The 90-minute interactive format of these web conferences provide ample time to interact with the panel through a Q and A session.  The web conference format encourages team participation.

This program is intended for biomedical and clinical engineers, IT staff, nursing department leads, materials managers, risk managers and patient safety officers, and other healthcare professionals.

CLICK HERE  for additional information.
Advanced registration is required.

 

Manager Touts Equipment Replacement Plan

How do you know when to replace medical equipment?  Scott Skinner, system director of clinical engineering for Norton Healthcare in Louisville, KY, helped develop a clinical equipment replacement plan for his facilities.  In this issue of AAMI News, Skinner, a member of AAMI’s Technology Management Council, talks about his experience—and why he occasionally wears a kilt.

How does your facility’s equipment replacement process work?

We launched a cross-functional effort that involved nursing, clinical engineering, and material management to revamp the way we replace clinical equipment.  We came up with a set of objective criteria such as risk, function, and standard of care.  We basically run the device prioritization process based on those criteria. This approach has streamlined the equipment replacement planning process.

Clinical engineering is very instrumental in the development of the prioritized equipment list every year.  By and large, our recommendations are accepted by hospital management.
How can a replacement plan help a hospital save money?

Obviously, in today’s environment we have a limited amount of capital available to invest.  What this process does is try to ensure we make those capital investments in the areas that have the most need.   People don’t always consider how replacing equipment can help an organization meet key strategies.  If you have technology that is out of date and less efficient, replacing it with equipment that has a higher up-time can save money.

What criteria do you think healthcare technology management (HTM) departments often overlook when evaluating whether to replace equipment?

To me there is one: standard of care.  A lot of departments tend to focus on black and white attributes like a device’s age.

But a device’s standard of care is very critical.  For example, say an old ventilator is working just fine, but a new device has improved alarm technologies.  That might increase patient safety, and therefore prompt a replacement.

Your department merged with information technology (IT) in 2008.  How did the transition go?

We were apprehensive at first.  I think even as we became a part of IT, it remained to be seen what value we would offer.  But the merger elevated our position in the organization.  We found out that our job is pretty similar to IT.   Both departments support very complex technologies and systems.

How did that merger impact your department’s prominence?

The relationship to IT means we are better plugged in strategically within the organization.  The facility is converting to a new electronic medical record (EMR) system right now.  I think because we are part of IT, clinical engineering has been involved since the beginning of that project.  It has helped us develop our medical device integration strategy.  We’ve got a seat at the table.

What do you like to do in your spare time?

I’ve played the Great Highland Bagpipe for about five years now and performed on holidays such as St. Patrick’s Day.

CLICK HERE  to read the AAMI News: April 2012 online article.