The Indiana Heart
Hospital
Informatics application and patient flow
July 30, 2010 tour
By Amrita Parikh,
Mercy Shitemi,
Susan Robinson.
The Indiana Heart Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana, offers complete integrated cardiovascular
care, is a fully accredited chest pain center and has been named one of the nation’s 100 Top
Hospitals® for cardiovascular care by Thomson Reuters for four consecutive years. The Indiana
heart Hospitals takes advantage of advances technology to improve patient care and satisfaction.
This report will try and go through some of the applications in place.
The big worry about patient records is that information is not easily accessible to medical
professionals. Hospital systems are not connected. For example, if a patient moves to
Indianapolis from California, to get access to their records, one has to asked for them to be faxed
over or emailed, yet industries like automotives, supermarkets, food(pizza) it is easy to pull up a
customer’s history from a swiped card or just presenting a phone number. One way The Indiana
Heart Hospital is dealing with this is by implementing the Indiana Network for Patient Care
(INPC). This is a system created by the Regenstrief Institute. Through this system professionals
can access patient records of those patients in the 5 INPC Hospital systems which include
Community Hospitals Indianapolis, St. Vincent Hospitals and Health Services, St. Francis
Hospital and Health Centers, Clarian Health, and Wishard Health Services. On a more local
level, the Indiana Heart Hospital has made use of the Virtual Single Patient Record (VSPR). This
helps in reducing information harvesting redundancies in different areas of the hospital.
To ensure full technology integration in the hospital, the medical informatics team is charged
with the task of ensuring technology and cultural readiness. They have to ensure that Physicians
can use the system and have the system as standard as possible to improve efficiency without
losing track of records privacy.
There are a couple fears related to incorporating technology to the hospital system. These are:
 Wasted time for logging in and out (a system is in place that logs out automatically after
a while)
 Reduced human interaction
“Lots of times application of technology can save lives …
but don’t confuse means to an end.”
Some of the benefits of incorporating technology to the hospital systems are:
 Nurses and physicians spend valuable time with the patients because history is readily
available
 Accurate records especially in provider order entries.
By Amrita Parikh,
Mercy Shitemi,
Susan Robinson.
Patient flow and some applications of medical informatics
Lobby
The lobby has a hotel feel to it
rather than a hospital feel. This is to
make the families and patients
more
comfortable
and
less
intimidated. The lobby also has
many entrances and facilities
provide easy access and comfort to
patients and visitors. This area is
also for both in-patient and outpatient use.
Professional office
This area hosts the cardiology offices with direct access to the hospital. Cardiac testing is also
done here.
Information Desk/Registration
This is where patients
check in. After checking
in, they go to a
registration booth to
register. Patients have
access
to
a
‘My
Community
Card’
which when swiped,
reduces the number of
registration processes
because it always holds
the
patient’s
information.
Waiting Room
This place is designed for the patients who have made appointments with the hospital doctors.
The area also has a direct access with the ambulances bring the patients in, so the patients don’t
have to go through the normal registration procedure and can be transferred directly to the
emergency room.
1
By Amrita Parikh,
Mercy Shitemi,
Susan Robinson.
Emergency room
The hospital has worked with
the ambulances so that they
only deliver patients with
chest pain to the hospital.
Many of the ambulances have
electronic ECGs on board that
transmit information from
the ambulance to the hospital
while the patient is still en
route. This is beneficial
because by the time the
patient gets to the hospital,
the physicians are ready to
provide the care.
The emergency area has a
close ambulance bay. It is
similar to the Play station,
where all the instruments are
available for the patients’ and
doctors’ needs. This room
2
By Amrita Parikh,
Mercy Shitemi,
Susan Robinson.
takes all the necessary measurements again to verify the patients’ condition, which had been
taken in the ambulance.
This room also has a machine, similar to an ATM, which handles medications; the doctor does
not have to choose the dose but instead the machine will guide the doctor as soon as the
condition is fed in the machine and it will pop up automatically.
ECG station
This station plays an important
role because all the ECGs in
Indianapolis
hospitals
are
received and monitored here. If
a questionable reading comes
in, the monitors notify the
nurses and they would check
on the patients. This is a
telemetry area, which houses
all Community Health Network
telemetry. There is a technician
who watches the 12 screens in
the room and communicates
with staff on the hospital floor
if need be.
Laboratories
There are four catheterization rooms where they do angioplasty, and another four Provascular
electrophysiology labs. The system used in the labs is MACLAB.
Day beds
These are pre-operation rooms, located between the nurses’ station and the surgery area for
observation. The patient may be discharged from here following a procedure, or sent to a patient
care room on a particular floor for a longer stay and recovery.
3
By Amrita Parikh,
Nurses’ Station
Mercy Shitemi,
Susan Robinson.
The nurses’ station is designed for the nurses
to log in and log out to the computers safely
while still being able to keep an eye on the
patients. It is centrally located to the patient
rooms to keep an eye on recovery.
Patient Care Room
The patient
care rooms
successfully
combine
quality
technology
and patient
care.
Patients
can
have
the
comforts of
family with
them, while
having upto-date
wireless
technology
at the same
time with
the
computer system. Monitors rotate and keyboards are wireless so that doctors and nurses can
4
By Amrita Parikh,
Mercy Shitemi,
Susan Robinson.
focus on the patient much easier. Besides regular programs, the TV screens also allow the
patient to see their procedures afterward as they happened. The beds also have call buttons if
the patient needs help and no one is around.
Systems used in the hospital
Most of the medical systems used are GE systems and the financial systems are Marcuson.
Centricity software is used to enter the data in the database. This software and the applications
are designed in such a way that doctors and nurse can change the out screen of the application
without interfering with other tabs of information. For example, “cardio” would have the
patient’s ECG signs and what symptoms he is going through, but if there is any difference in the
condition then the nurse and the doctor can update the information. This software has special
characteristics such as daily summary, VSPR and longitudinal summary, all of which are helpful
to the doctors to get a clearer overall picture of the patient’s health.
MACLAB – Labs
OB/GYN – CPM
Inpatient – Centricity
Outpatient
Emergency – VSP
Cardio – Heart lab
Scheduling – PHS
Material
managing
–
PMM
VOCERA
SEVERA – This is a legal
medical records system.
Once
patients
are
discharged
from
the
hospital, their records are
cold-booted
into
the
system after 72 hours. If
anything is to be added to
the records after that, it
has to be scanned and sent
to the offsite location to be
added into the system. Records in several are in report form and do not look like the actual
document.
Technology Support in the hospital
Wireless network team
Infrastructure Team
Security team
Clinical Informatics team
Server team
Supplementary Reading
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