Phoenix Children's Hospital is harnessing data technology to improve patient outcomes and measure progress in several key ways, according to an op-ed in U.S. News & World Report.
Michael Ritchey, MD, CMO of Phoenix Children's offers three examples:
1. Monitoring pediatric medications. To address inaccurate prescribing and medication dosing, Phoenix Children's IT department worked with the hospital system's pharmacists and clinicians to design a pediatric dose range checking system, which uses patient data to create recommended medication dose ranges for pediatric patients.
If a prescribed medication exceeds that dosage, the system alerts the prescriber electronically and puts a hold on the pharmacy order. After implementing this system, dosing errors have significantly decreased at Phoenix Children's, Dr. Ritchey said.
2. Amassing data and predicting risk. In 2015, the hospital developed the Phoenix Children's data lake, which gathers patient information from 67 hospital systems. The data is continuously fed into a single repository, from which different departments can draw information. The hospital uses this information to predict and counteract negative patient outcomes.
Using the data lake, for example, the IT department worked with the division of pediatric nephrology to create a system that analyzes millions of patient records to find patients at increased risk of acute kidney injury. Every six hours, the system sifts through data from each admitted patient and calculates their kidney function, and providers get an alert about any patient at elevated risk of acute kidney injury.
In less than one year of using this system, the hospital saw a 60 percent reduction in patients developing acute kidney injury, according to Dr. Ritchey.
3. Using safety dashboards. Phoenix Children's technologists worked with physicians to create a clinical dashboard that lets clinicians access each patient's data at their fingertips, including recent surgeries, current medications and discharge instructions. The hospital's safety dashboards also monitor compliance with clinical bundles for central line infections, catheter-associated urinary tract infections and surgical site infections.
"Data management technology is a powerful tool in clinical settings," Dr. Ritchey wrote. "These innovative new systems offer time and support to healthcare providers striving to adhere to the highest standards for their patients. And they open the door to improved safety and better outcomes for patients."