When a patient is admitted to an emergency department, there is a lot of critical collaboration and knowledge-sharing required, the conveyance of which may mean life or death.
Take, for example, the trauma patient. Emergency Medical Services collect the patient and deliver him or her to the ED with vitals, observations and a treatment report for the ED team to address. Information is relayed in bits and pieces along the way, and upon arrival EMS hands off records and gives the ED physician a verbal report. It’s the current process, despite the fact that a lot of things can go wrong.
So, what if that process could be streamlined?
Enter MedAware, an innovative, patient-centric, mHealth, telehealth company for real-time care collaboration and knowledge sharing with a plan to change the way information is shared throughout the healthcare continuum. Cofounded by Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Health System, the company is commercializing an offering designed to break down clinical care silos through one platform that delivers an array of clinical solutions.
Here are three things to know about the company and its product:
1. The patient-centric platform is designed to bridge the gaps in the continuum of care through an end-to-end, HIPAA-compliant solution to address the disconnected information silos that can compromise patient care. For instance, in the case of the trauma patient, paramedics could send vitals and voice updates with the patient’s condition to the ED, along with videos, images and other collaboration data related to injuries, preparing the ED for that patient’s particular needs. Then, physicians and nurses can stay engaged in the care of the patient’s condition as it progresses.
2. Cofounded with Cedars-Sinai, the technology emerges from “next-gen battlefield situational awareness” for the Department of Defense Special Operations Team that has been years in the making and adapted for a civilian healthcare setting. MedAware Solutions’ advisors include Bruce Gewertz, MD, surgeon-in-chief at Cedars-Sinai, and former Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, among other healthcare leaders.
3. The software-as-a-service cloud platform can be used across the healthcare delivery spectrum, unlike most other solutions, even extending to patient and family engagement. As such, it has the potential for diverse impacts that can help eliminate flow disruptions, clinical errors and poor patient compliance enabling hospitals and health systems to deal with the impact of Readmission Penalties, HIPAA, HCAHPS, P4P, PPACA and ICD-10 challenges.
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