Pediatrics is a completely different type of care than adult care. Just as it requires specialized medical knowledge, it also needs specialized healthcare information technology.
Tracy Warren is the Co-Founder and CEO of Astarte Medical, a provider of digital tools for children. Healthcare IT News sat down with Warren for an in-depth look at pediatrics and technology, discussed steps to ensure healthcare workers are making the best use of data, the pace of technological innovation in pediatric care, how IT health could limit the all-time high preterm birth rate in the US and best practices that clinical care teams can use to prevent medical errors and malpractice in the care unit especially for babies.
Q. Data and how it is applied in clinical settings is helping to improve care. But there are challenges in terms of data quality and data presentation. What steps can be taken to ensure clinical staff are using the best, most useful data?
ONE. The interesting thing about the move to AI and machine learning is that people are ignoring the fact that the quality of data from the EHR is really a rate limiting factor. Because EHR is a billing system, not designed to assist with patient care, patient care data is recorded in custom flow rows in many places inconsistently and often with typographical errors. machine or defect.
In addition, much of the patient assessment and ordering is in fact unstructured free text, making the data quality very variable and difficult to interpret with existing natural language processing solutions. This can lead to companies needing clinical experts to interpret, compile and convert.
With the advent of EHR integration technologies, there is a second set of eyes on EHR data and, for solutions that provide real-time data access, a monitoring system may exist. quality, allowing clinical teams to be alerted to inconsistencies and gaps in data. From there, teams can make adjustments and improve data quality, and improve processes to reduce volatility.
Q. Some in the industry say innovation in pediatric care is slow. What is your opinion? And if it’s slow, what do you think is stopping this healthcare department from adopting new technology?
ONE. As a former venture capitalist, it has long been said that “you can’t make a profit in pediatrics because it’s a small market.” The FDA and other organizations have worked hard to drive innovation by reducing regulatory burdens, streamlining processes, and creating financial incentives to pursue pediatric or rare disease pathways. meet.
However, few if any investors actively support investments in pediatrics, limiting innovation and negatively impacting patient outcomes.
Children are more medically complex than ever before, with a growing number of chronic diseases and conditions, but the technologies that support healthcare providers, patients and their families are rapidly changing. lagging or not keeping up.
Large players in the medical device and medical IT sectors are pressured to focus on large adult populations, preventing the market from providing comprehensive solutions for our children. Finally, reimbursement in the pediatric sector also creates budgetary challenges for hospitals providing these services.
Medicaid and payers need to work together to support the health of our children, or the weight of these challenges could have a ripple effect later on.
Q. March of Dimes released a report highlighting the all-time high preterm birth rate in the US How this tax source in the neonatal care unit and what can be done through the healthcare information technology to improve care delivery?
ONE. Not only are rates of preterm births increasing – due to poor access to prenatal care, poorer maternal health and increasing maternal age – but the resources to support infants at risk are also increasing. This drama has been decimated due to COVID-19. The pandemic has pushed many professionals out of the industry, with most units reporting nursing shortages limiting their ability to fill NICU beds.
The healthcare industry has long relied on human resources to provide care, but this is no longer possible. The system should start with a whiteboard of how care can be optimally provided with the fewest resources. In the NICU, rethink staffing rates and remove routine administrative activities from the clinical team so that it can be best served with technology and automation.
Leveraging the significant investment many providers have made in their EHRs to improve operational efficiency will not be easy, but can and can help existing NICU capacity to support more infants .
Q. In the fast-paced NICU environment, communication is crucial, especially when it comes to the baby’s survival. From your experience, what are some of the best practices that clinical care teams should use to prevent medical errors and malpractice?
ONE. Access to information is paramount in any ICU setting, and medical teams have been able to improve communication in many ways. First, a unit-wide monitoring or tracking system could provide a “war room”-like feature for monitoring complex patients, highlighting those at risk by automating criteria to direct resources effectively based on key key indicators.
Second, we can break down data silos by providing a comprehensive, longitudinal view of the patient, freeing data from the EHR. This can enable better compliance practice guidelines, ensuring efficient and consistent communication between the multidisciplinary teams that exist within the NICU.
Finally, the warning features have been used before, but care must be taken not to create fatigue on the clinical team, to avoid warning fatigue and further negative impact on the process. and clinic procedures.
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