Technology Platform Maximizes Clinical and Operational Performance

By HospiMedica International staff writers
Posted on 06 Jun 2012
A unique software solution links patient data to customizable, mobile, electronic replicas of paper chart documents, enabling clinical staff to focus on care, not paperwork.

The Vitro software platform replaces all patient paper forms in the clinic and hospital, eliminating storage and retrieval costs while providing a complete audit trail, thus ensuring that hospital staff can focus on patient care, not administration. Forms are integrated seamlessly with hospitals processes, while still enabling customization to an individual patient episode, thus allowing adoption right across the hospital, with no duplication required. The forms look the same as on the paper form, except that they are on an electronic pad, described as the “Paper on Glass” concept.

Image: Patient charts on the Vitro software platform (Photo courtesy of Sláinte Healthcare).

By representing all existing preprinted chart stationery in electronic format, complete with demographic and clinical information, Vitro encourages the capture of bedside data electronically, rather than as handwritten notes. Where paper must be used, it is printed from Vitro, tagged with patient detail and barcoded with patient and document data. This ensures that large volumes of paper can be automatically scanned back into patient records without the need for manual indexing or intervention. At all times, the clinician knows whether the electronic patient record is a full or partial reflection of the current patient status, ensuring that such documentation must be reconciled back to the patient record post write-up.

Benefits of the system include reduced errors by guaranteeing readable and complete patient information; reduced operating cost by eliminating paper-based forms, without storage and retrieval issues; improved care quality by reducing patient wait times caused by slow communication; improved patient safety through clearer clinical instructions; improved time, availability, and productivity of clinicians; and improved clinical governance with a full-audit trail on clinical decisions. The Vitro software platform is a product of Sláinte Healthcare (Dublin, Ireland).

“Despite advances in systems, the modern healthcare workplace still involves multiple forms and multiple signatures, from admissions and patient consent, to authority for medication,” said David Beausang, commercial director of Sláinte Healthcare. “Our Vitro platform coordinates the capture and flow of such forms across different departments enabling the clinical and administrative sides of the organization to make decisions faster, using information they were never previously able to access.”

Related Links:

Sláinte Healthcare



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