JULY - 201919The notion that we as healthcare providers should anticipate the needs of patients and act on the latest data might seem self-evident. However, as many of us know, it can be difficult to put that philosophy into practice while balancing the needs and perspectives of all those involved in care decisions. The volume and complexity of essential healthcare information can be overwhelming for clinicians balancing the care of multiple patients in need. Children's National Health System has been a leader in pediatric health for years, and one of the drivers of that success across the organization has been a focus on high quality, safe and proactive pediatric healthcare. As a pediatric critical care specialist and VP, CMIO and CIO, I have had many opportunities to work with organizational leaders, clinical and technical staff members to design approaches to care that allow us to achieve and sustain that balance.To that end, Children's National launched the Bear Institute in September 2013. The Bear Institute is a pediatric health information technology partnership with the Cerner Corporation designed to provide value-driven care with a focus on operational excellence and innovation. It serves as a health IT innovation laboratory, where clinicians, developers, programmers and engineers work together to strengthen our health IT infrastructure and accelerate the advancement of the quality initiatives underway at Children's National. Through the development and implementation of health IT programs, the Bear Institute supports the larger Children's National vision ­ "To help create a future where every child grows to their highest level of health and potential."One approach that illustrates our success in improving care is through the use of real-time hospital unit-based quality and safety boards visible by clinicians, administrators, patients and family members throughout all care delivery units in the organization. The boards display important patient safety and quality measures which can be rapidly acted upon to improve care. For example, in the Pediatric ICU, the boards display each patient's risk for deep vein thrombosis, ventilator-acquired pneumonia, unplanned tracheal extubation, urinary tract infection, and catheter-associated blood stream infections among others. The large-scale, digital monitors refresh every five minutes, allowing physicians, nurses, patients and family members to directly engage in the assessment of important safety and quality measures and, most importantly, deliver prompt preventative care for every patient.We have noted improvements in care quality in the cardiac ICU through the use of quality and safety boards, including:Brian Jacobs, MD, VP, CMIO & CIO, Children's National Health SystemByQUALITY AND SAFETY BOARDS: A LESSON IN PROACTIVE PEDIATRIC HEALTHCIO Insights
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