Real-Time Charting Means Safest Care for Children
With more than half of the staff at PHS being skilled clinicians and nurses who spend their days in patient homes, being able to efficiently chart and access records electronically 24/7 from patient homes is crucial to seamless care.
While the IT department had previously installed Windows laptops in some patient homes so nurses could log onto the system, that method proved to be costly and cumbersome. Each week, nurses would be responsible for filling out a spreadsheet that had multiple tabs before another staff person would lock it down.
In a service that was in its new stages with only a few patients, this wasn’t a method that could continue efficiently in the future.
Finding a Better Solution
When it came time to update the server two years ago, Rick, our IT Manager, began researching options before landing on Google Apps. This provided a secure and cost effective solution, and soon it was rolling out in a fast growing company. With the success of Google Apps, the IT department looked into providing Chromebooks in the field when it was time for an update.
This option allowed PHS to ensure crucial information, including charts, medication lists and treatments, is in our nurse’s hands and able to be charted immediately. It allows nurses to access the PHS Citrix portal while also maintaining a secure connection, crucial when ensuring that our patient information was constantly secure – a requirement that has always been top-of-mind, but made even more smooth through Chromebook.
Bringing Data To Parents
This innovative solution to needing access to secure, reliable and potentially lifesaving information means that our company is able to do something no other homecare companies in Minnesota are doing – real-time charting. As a nurse is typing data on a patient into their laptop, it is entered into a website being streamed instantaneously to the servers at Pediatric Home Service.
With nurses real-time charting, our IT team was also able to build a parent portal around this information so parents and their families or caregivers can review charting information immediately. Additionally, nurses can communicate with each patient’s primary physician(s) in the field to report on the medical status of the child they’re providing care for.
Because of this innovation and implementation, clinicians and nurses are able to collaborate and provide the highest level of care to an incredibly complex population.
Originally published: June 6, 2014