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Improving patient care through technology

The Institute of Medicine's groundbreaking 2000 report To Err is Human: Building a Safer Health System revealed an astounding number of medical errors in the United States that resulted in tens of thousands of patient deaths per year. Unsurprisingly, the report spurred a nationwide movement to improve patient safety, and Children's Hospital Boston, like hospitals across the nation, has undertaken a host of initiatives to make its patient care even safer.

Children's Hospital Applications Maximizing Patient Safety (CHAMPS) is the hospital's most significant initiative in the effort, and is about to roll out the next phase of its multi-year program. CHAMPS is an integrated clinical information system that lets clinicians share patient information electronically, view test results, access patient information, order and administer medications and document nursing notes.

It is expected to have a significant impact on patient safety: Important data will be less prone to errors of handwriting interpretation. Also, it will allow more than one clinician at a time to review patient data (including lab results and medical histories) and to access it remotely.

The first phases of the CHAMPS project have replaced the hospital's Results Reporting system and moved many facets of clinical documentation from paper to electronic format.

The next phase, slated to go live in early 2007, involves a host of new technologies. Prescribers will place rules-supported orders electronically, while nurses will use point of care handheld devices to scan barcoded patient wristbands and medications prior to administrating medication. Additional clinical documentation and the Medication Administration Record will move to PowerChart and bedside medical device interfaces will download patient data from bedside monitors directly to PowerChart.

Read about future CHAMPS advances, including physician documentation, in future issues of Pediatric Views.

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