Sunday, August 23, 2015

The Importance of Biomedical Engineering and IT working together in Healthcare



There is a penalty for IT ignorance in healthcare. The management problem with IT within healthcare is an ongoing issue that has cost healthcare millions of dollars. Healthcare executives rely on vendor expertise instead of investing or seeking seasoned in house IT experts who understand the interworking’s of healthcare. The ignorance of the intricacies of biomedical technology and healthcare IT cost healthcare millions of dollars. The importance of understanding how medical equipment integrates with the hospital’s IT network is very important. Biomedical Engineering does not understand the intricacies of IT and IT does not understand the functionality medical equipment. A person that understands medical equipment and IT can prove to be very valuable to a healthcare system. Another problem is the troubleshooting and repair of IT based medical equipment. With some medical equipment to startup and configure relies on it being placed on the IT network, someone who understands what is needed is invaluable because of the necessary components and how to work with the proper IT personnel. Another area of importance is in the troubleshooting and repair. Vendors do not support or are not interested in the configurations of another vendor’s equipment. In hospitals, there is a smorgasbord of equipment that in some cases rely on communicating with another vendor’s equipment, in this case someone that understands integration is very important. This person would minimize the finger pointing. The company Interactive Healthcare Designs (IHD) provides this service with over 20yrs in healthcare (in house), the experts are poised to consult in Biomedical / IT networks, project management and other services. The founder Dr. Jeffrey Smoot has over 15 yrs. in Biomedical Technology and over 10 yrs. in Picture Archiving (PACS) and specialized in Cardio-Vascular Information Systems (CVIS), he has experience with the major vendors in Radiology, ICU monitoring and surgical networks. Dr. Smoot is also a professor in Healthcare Informatics. To hire consulting for bridging the gap between Biomedical/ IT and other healthcare services contact us:

Sunday, August 2, 2015

Medical Errors in Healthcare





In the June, issue Fierce Healthcare had an article that talked about the rise of hospital medical errors in state was Massachusetts. The Boston Globe reported that errors were on the rise however, the Department of Public Health states, that is good. The report showed that 821 Serious Reportable Events (SRE) in 2014, an increase of 9 from 2013. Massachusetts officials cautioned that the increase does not indicates that hospital are less safe but say that it is an indication of more accurate data. Error reporting increase when a new error reporting data system was implemented in 2013. When the National Quality Forum standards was updated in 2012 errors jumped 70 percent between 2012 to 2013.  These new standards reported 290 serious injuries or deaths from a fall in 2014, a slight increase from 2012. The number of wrong site surgeries decreased, from 36 to 24, wrong sight surgeries and foreign objects left behind remained relatively the same.
Mayo Clinic researchers identified Major surgical errors used human factors analysis to identify  69 never events, including surgery on the wrong person, the wrong site or wrong side of the body, among the 1.5 million invasive procedures performed over 5 years, they found 628 human factors contributed to the errors overall, roughly four to nine per event. Nearly two-thirds of the mayo never events occurred during relatively minor procedures such as anesthetic blocks, line placements, interventional radiology procedures, endoscopy and other skin and soft tissue procedures. Even though there were multiple missteps that occurred there were four major identifiers  for the potential causes, such as stress, mental fatigue, miscommunications, unsafe actions this is where clinicians convince themselves they are seeing what they want to see, inadequate supervision and organizational influences.
Steps to prevent never event errors Mayo clinic follows Joint Commission’s protocol such as briefings and huddles before surgery, surgeons pausing before making the first incision. Surgical teams at Mayo have also implemented World Health Organization’s recommended safety checklist.

This problem is existing all throughout healthcare this is just information on one hospital study. The opportunities for error reporting software is limited and the ability to measure different parameters of hospital medical errors is at best difficult.

Saturday, May 9, 2015

Big Data in Nepal

Big Data in Nepal
When the words Big Data are used some think of the customer privacy being jeopardized or the issue   of a person’s privacy eroding. The opportunity for intricate applications in the art of Big Data can be demonstrated in the time of disaster when crisis emergency manager are overwhelmed.  During this time, it is imperative that information is communicated to first responders. In the time of crisis not only is information necessary but the addition of big data in the form of sensors, GPS and social media along with GIS mapping for terrain visualization is necessary. A report in the Government Technology magazine mentioned that one of the first times big data was implemented was in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. FEMA used a different approach from previous disasters by changing its internal response protocol, loosening relationships with non-profit do-gooders that provided big data analysis like Splunk4Good and Geeks without Bounds. Overall the project went well however there were challenges, one was the fact that it is possible to accurately predict the volume of big data that would be produced by a disaster. One important things to keep in mind is that although social media was used in past disasters the implementation and uses of components like road sensors, security cameras, weather detectors etc. is important and has been very effective in the events of natural disasters. The implementation of Sunami warning and detection devices has provided important and the effective big data.
We must remember when it comes to big data regulations there are factors that should be considered that are driven by humanitarian reasons first, the importance of caution, how we regulate in the name of personal and public privacy, the motives for sharing should not be to gain a competitive advantage but for compassion to help provide relief from disasters.
If there is anytime, when Big Data should be tested is when natural catastrophes and catastphoic events happen. The ability to measure devastation is crucial to saving lives. Big Data should be tested unfortunately events that are acts of nature will truly measure the effectiveness of it application.

http://Fiercebigdata.com/Big data in crisis management: Nepal earthquake