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How ICUTracker is being used and What Users are
Saying
Saving Data Abstraction Time
Nurses working in the Outcomes Division of Baycare
Medical Center, a large, Integrated Health System in
Clearwater, Florida were spending enormous amounts
of time manually abstracting patient charts to
monitor outcomes data. “With ICUTracker, we spend
about five minutes per chart compared to at least 45
minutes per chart with our manual system.” Now the
staff spends more time analyzing data and working to
achieve efficiencies instead of tedious, manual data
collection.
We use ICUTracker as a tool to track every
patient who enters one of our units; ICU and CCU's
We
look at everything we do to the patient while they
are in the unit. It electronically captures all
patient demographics, lab values, procedures,
charges, coding information, and unit
admission/transfer/hospital discharge dates and
times.
Collecting All
Data
Many ICUTracker hospital customers like Northeast
Medical Center in NC, had previously subscribed to
Project Impact. The extensive manual data collection
required for PI forced their Quality Department to
look at only a random sample of their patient data.
Now with ICUTracker, they get 100% of their patient
data, most of it automatically, allowing near-time
outcomes monitoring.
Capturing All
Charges
When John C. Lincoln Hospital completed their
installation of ICUTracker, it was the first time
that the clinicians could look closely at their
aggregate patient data. “We noticed that the
ventilator data seemed wrong.” Upon further
investigation they realized that the ventilator
billing was incomplete, resulting in significant
lost revenue to the hospital. Having ICUTracker
allowed them to correct the discrepancies and
capture all legitimate hospital charges.
Profiling Infected Patients
Using data from the Infection Control Department
imported into ICUTracker, the critical care
physicians at an Hartford Hospital are able to
quickly and easily monitor outcomes of infected
patients. Data such as length of stay, medication
charges, and population distribution can be easily
reported using simple to generate, menu-driven
reports.
Physician
Specific Reports
Changing practice patterns requires reliable data.
The ability to sort any report by the physician
enables evaluation and comparison to ensure that
best practices are achieved for your patients.
Showing accurate physicians’ data facilitates
recognition of opportunities for improvement and
enables assessment of the most important result: the
impact on your patients.
Benchmarking
Performance
A large,
integrated health system uses ICUTracker to trend
mortality, length-of-stay, ventilator hours,
complications and readmit rates. Prior to the
installation of ICUTracker they used two, full-time
data collectors to collect data from a single ICU.
Now with ICUTracker, the same two employees are able
to handle six ICUs in four hospitals. “In comparing
the monthly data we realized that one of our units
had a readmit rate that was three times that of the
other units. We now have a Six-Sigma blackbelt
looking into the issue as a process improvement
project.”
Identifying Data Errors
ICUTracker allows the user to scan all patient
records and sort by any desired criterion. One
hospital learned that the admitting office was using
a discharge code rather than a transfer code and
patients moved from unit to unit. Correcting this
situation resulted in more accurate length-of-stay
data. Since all LOS data had been seen only in the
aggregate, the hospital personnel were unaware of
the problem. “We would never have identified this
process problem without ICUTracker.”
Monitoring the
Arctic Sun Project
ICUTracker is
being used to monitor the outcomes of patients who
have received Arctic Sun treatment (cooling the body
temperature to reduce metabolic rate and thus the
bad consequences of swelling).This hospital hopes to
show the long-term benefits of using this
therapeutic intervention. ICUTracker will enable
them to quickly and easily look at outcomes data
(LOS, expenses, mortality) for the target patient
population as well as a control population who have
not received the intervention. Closer Monitoring of
VAP and Central Line infections Creating simple
profiles entitled “Potential VAP” and “Potential
Central Line infections” is helping one hospital to
screen for these conditions more easily and more
accurately account for these
complications. “Potential VAP” counts any patient
who was on the ventilator for greater than 0.1 hours
and had a broncoalveolar lavage (BAL) ordered. The
“Potential Central Line Infections” counts any
patient with a central line charge and an order for
a central line culture. These profiles allow the
user to automatically create lists of patients who
can be followed more closely for these
complications.
Facilitating
Clinical Research
Automated data collection allows the clinical
researcher to focus on data analysis rather than
tedious, manual data collection. ICUTracker
provides clinicians the ability to create lists of
patients who meet a given set of clinical criteria
(e.g. those on a ventilator for more than one day,
those with an average glucose value greater than
200, those who had a central line inserted). The
system can also be used to look at a variety of
outcome measures (length of stay, length of stay on
ventilator, total charges, mortality) for a given
patient population being studied. In addition,
patients with and without a given condition can
easily be compared, using commands requiring just a
few mouse clicks.
Do Rapid
Response Teams Matter?
Many hospitals are establishing ‘Rapid Response
Teams’ or ‘Medical Emergency Teams’ to provide
timely intervention to patients whose conditions
changes, but before their condition constitutes a
medical crisis. The teams usually consist of a
critical care nurse, a physician and a respiratory
therapist. Calling the rapid response team gives
the floor nurse an option for a quick assessment
when the patient’s attending physician may not be
immediately available.ICUTracker makes it possible
to look specifically at patients who have received
care from the Rapid Response Team and compare their
outcomes to the general patient population. For more
information on Rapid Response Teams, visit the IHI
website. |