Innovative Technology Platform Cut Emergency Wait Times

The UC San Diego Medical Center (UCSD; USA) emergency departments (EDs) have reduced waiting time by 92 minutes, thanks to an innovative technology suite that accesses data from incoming patients’ implanted cardiac devices (ICDs).

The reduction was achieved at the UCSD Hillcrest and Thornton EDs thanks to its implementation (in 2012) of the Geneva Healthcare Suite, a software platform that organizes health data from multiple sources onto an intuitive dashboard that makes life-saving information available immediately to all clinicians at the point of care (POC). While the Geneva medical device gateway (MDG) initial focus is on ICD data, the system creates an infrastructure to collect and integrate all types of mobile health data. It can also serve as a gateway for mobile cardiac outpatient telemetry (MCOT), remote blood pressure, and weight scale devices.

The platform also includes a clinical decision support (CDS) module that unites and standardizes patient’s cardiac device data into the dashboard, enabling the management of remote monitoring, clinical uploads, and interrogations across a range of acute care and outpatient settings. Clinicians can access the CDS module remotely or within a provider’s electronic medical record (EMR) and/or a health information exchange (HIE). The CDS module’s reading panel and electronic dictation functionality allows hospitals and physicians to implement a coordinated workflow for reading, reporting, and billing. The Geneva Healthcare Suite is a product of Geneva Healthcare (National City, CA, USA).

“Using the Geneva’s technology platform we have been able to quickly train our ED staff on how to collect information about a patient’s device regardless of the device manufacturer or type of device. We do not have to rely on each manufacturer’s device representative or on different proprietary reporting systems,” said Theodore Chan, MD, UCSD chair of emergency medicine.

“The key challenge in healthcare today is to take complex data – in this case implantable device data – and make it instantly actionable when it is needed most, at places like the ER, the OR, or a cancer center where saving minutes could mean saving lives,” said Gilanthony Ungab, MD, co-founder and chief medical officer of Geneva Healthcare. “ERs are becoming a flashpoint area in healthcare as more and more patients are coming to the ER for their primary care. We aim to alleviate the bottlenecks that exist in these settings.”

Related Links:
UC San Diego Medical Center
Geneva Healthcare