Hospital of the future

Imagine this: Your appendix bursts. Nearly fainting from the pain, you register for an emergency operation. The hospital prints your wristband. Suddenly, you lose consciousness.

In the next few hours, hospital staff reconfirm your identity and your penicillin allergy before surgeons operate. They are able to document your blood type and maintain a complete record of what every person in the operating room does when and how—all without using a single scrap of paper. 

At Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (CGMH) in Taiwan, this scenario isn’t science fiction, thanks to tiny radio frequency identification chips and the big IT systems behind them. The hospital has implemented an advanced RFID solution that digitizes and standardizes many of the processes that are part of a surgical patient’s hospital stay. When a patient registers for surgery, staff issue a smart wristband containing an RFID chip. The wristband prints in a matter of seconds. Before surgery, a nurse scans the wristband with an HP iPAQ RFID reader to verify the patient’s identity. If it’s the wrong patient, the nurse is alerted . During surgery, all members of the staff are scanned at various steps in the process, creating a real-time electronic record of everything that happens, when it happens, and who does it. Now that CGMH collects data digitally, the operating room is more efficient, accurate and cost effective. Most important, patients are safer.

Hospitals are no strangers to the value of technology. Collectively, they spend billions of dollars annually on advanced diagnostic and treatment equipment. Until recently, however, information technology was limited to administrative and financial applications and played a much smaller role in the direct care of patients. Today, hospitals around the world are undergoing a digital transformation, harnessing cutting-edge IT to save lives.

A digital hospital transformation can mean replacing expensive, hard-to-share and easily lost films (X-rays, for example) with digital images that can be effortlessly shared, stored and accessed. It means the move from an environment dominated by hand-written notes and physician orders to an environment in which staff use information systems to document patient records as well as enter and process orders.

But a true digital hospital transformation means much more than using software applications. It involves taking advantage of advanced technology such as RFID and using it imaginatively to meet a host of needs, such as prescribing and checking drug interactions at the point of care, quickly checking a patient’s blood type during an operation, matching newborn infants with their parents, or triggering a lock-down if an infant is removed from a secured area.

No matter what form a digital hospital transformation initially takes, it’s not an overnight change. In truth, says Jeff Miller, vice president of Health and Life Sciences at HP, it never ends.

“We continually advise our customers to view digital transformation as a journey, not a destination,” Miller says. “The journey will last years and years. But as hospitals begin to understand the ability of IT to improve patient safety and enable better outcomes, they’ll know it’s a worthwhile journey.”

As in any important journey, the first step is to make a plan. Start by defining a starting point and setting short- and long-term goals. At every step along the way, it’s important to address a few key issues—issues that will resurface each time you undertake a new initiative.

Data collection
How will you collect the data to digitize? Will staff manually input it at first? Or can you collect it digitally to save time, cut costs and reduce errors?

Process
How will a digital infrastructure change the way you deliver health care? Think through the ramifications of the solutions you plan to use and look for ways to expand beyond your initial intentions. For example, RFID technology can improve safety in many areas, not just in the operating room. It can help track vital and expensive equipment. RFID can verify that the pharmacy dispenses the correct drugs to a patient. It can help track toxic waste disposal. After its initial success with the technology, CGMH is extending RFID to the neonatal intensive care unit and emergency room.

Behavior
How will you encourage staff to develop new habits and to best use new digital capabilities? Once medical personnel develop baseline use, how do you train them to take greater advantage of the technology? Some staff may resist change initially. But even those who embrace digital changes will find that integration into daily life will take time on their part, and constant refinement on the part of IT.

Traditionally, hospitals start their digital transformations with departmental systems limited to clinical support functions like laboratories and imaging departments that implement laboratory information systems and radiology information systems.  Many hospitals have moved their X-ray film production to digital format using picture archiving communications systems. The greatest change comes from organizational initiatives like the electronic patient record and computerized physician order entry. While individual systems are critical to improving patient safety and increasing cost efficiency, it is the base infrastructure that determines how these information technology systems can be used in the future. Consider building from the start an infrastructure capable of expanding with your needs and ambitions.

At St. Olav’s in Trondheim, Norway, HP and its partners orchestrated a major IT infrastructural overhaul that laid the foundation for a true digital hospital. Using network appliances from Cisco Systems and middleware from Norway-based Cardiac, HP built a highly distributed network that exploits the latest mobile and wireless technology. St. Olav’s is now making the transition to cutting-edge hospital buildings, including sophisticated technologies to support caregiver productivity.

Among the technologies being implemented are MDAs, or medical data assistants, based on HP’s iPAQ Pocket PC. Nurses receive patient calls via a Cisco Internet Protocol (IP) phone. If there is no response within seconds, the request automatically routes to another nurse until someone responds. An intelligent locating system tracks physicians and specialists throughout the hospital so they can be found at a moment’s notice in an emergency. Patient terminals developed by Cardiac can deliver hospital services, nurse calling, Internet, entertainment and telephone service right to the patient’s bedside, while also providing clinicians with secure access to electronic patient records. 

St. Olav’s design and IT principles will also be applied to the Nye Ahus, a new hospital in Oslo, Norway. HP and its partners are involved in the project. Construction is expected to be completed in 2008.

No matter where you begin the digital transformation, HP is an ideal partner for developing the hospital of the future. HP has decades of experience using tested technology to help hospitals improve patient safety and provide better outcomes. Most important, HP offers a partner ecosystem equally rich in health care experience and technology to address every component of hardware, software and services necessary in a digital hospital transformation. Alliances with companies such as Cisco Systems and Cardiac drive the process from planning to production. Many hospitals have already embraced these joint solutions, which are tested to be safe, reliable and effective in delivering health care.

“Digital hospital transformation isn’t just a vision. It exists right now in several forward-thinking hospitals around the world,” Miller says. “But the journey requires much more than a collection of new solutions. It requires a new way of thinking. It requires a partner that understands the importance of innovation and collaboration, and that’s what HP and its partners bring to the table.”