A pilot program at the UCLA Medical Center, which uses wireless
technology to enable access to real time patient data by hospital
physicians and nurses, is already increasing patient care
efficiency and catching the eyes of hospitals across the
nation.
Dr. Neil Martin, professor and chief of the division of
neurosurgery at the UCLA Medical Center, is one of the initial
developers and inventors of the wireless program. He worked
alongside Valeriy Nenov, a professor in neurosurgery, Farzad Buxey,
a senior software developer, and other researchers from the UCLA
Division of Neurosurgery’s Brain Monitoring and Modeling
Lab.
The wireless system, known as the Global Care Quest system,
utilizes personal digital assistants and cellular smartphones to
allow access to patient medical data all over the world. Such data
includes vital sign information, x-ray and scan images, and
laboratory results.
Registered users on the system, which at this point include only
certain physicians and nurses, have user names and passwords to
keep the information secure. The records are encrypted, meaning
they are electronically protected, in the PDAs and phones as they
are sent wirelessly between the system and the devices. Within
minutes, information entered into the hospital’s computer
system is available on all PDAs and phones with the installed
program.
Martin said he has already noticed improvement in his ability to
efficiently care for his patients with the use of the system.
“If I’m outside of the hospital and I get paged …
it accelerates the response,” he said. “I’ve
looked at patient’s (information) when I was at Dodger
Stadium. In a high-acuity situation, it’s important to have
constant access to all of the information.”
Tom Rosenthal, chief medical officer of the UCLA Medical Center,
said the goal is not only to increase the efficiency of doctors but
also to provide better care for patients and increase the safety of
medical information.
“There’s an enormous hunger for physicians and
doctors to have (the system). One of the most cumbersome and
annoying things someone has to do during the day is hunt for
medical records,” he said.
Ultimately, if all medical records were electronic, doctors and
hospital staff would save themselves a great deal of time and
effort, Rosenthal said.
Martin said he has already noticed that he saves between 30 and
60 minutes a day.
Yee Chen, a third-year mechanical engineering student who works
in one of the labs in the medical center, said the system can be
beneficial so long as developers look out for bugs in the system.
He said the bugs in the hospital’s current system have caused
several problems while he has worked in the lab.
One major cause for concern is the repercussions of a system
crash.
Rosenthal said the system has “multiple back-up
redundancies,” so that in the event there was a power outage
in Westwood, the information would still be available through
off-site systems, such as one in Santa Monica.
Other areas of concern are the cost of the system and preparing
staff members to use it correctly.
Martin said the system has not been purchased by UCLA and is not
being used system-wide just yet. The UC Board of Regents own the
patent to the system, as is common for projects developed by UC
researchers.
GCQ Inc., a privately held medical software company based in Los
Angeles, is in the process of applying for a license for the
software.
Nenov said with the dropping costs of PDAs, the system could be
relatively inexpensive. He said some of the hospital’s
departments have purchased PDAs for their physicians, but those
staffers who already have PDAs can simply load the software onto
their device.
Nenov, Martin and Rosenthal all say physicians have had no
trouble learning to use the system.