Hospital Wins Award for Technology Implementation

On Dec. 12, 2006, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles was awarded 1st and 2nd place awards by Consumer Health World.  First-place recognition for a process improvement project utilizing technology and a second-place award for efforts to improve the quality of pediatric trauma and critical care.

Using Technology to Provide Better Care

To maximize patient safety and improve quality of care, the hospital established a process improvement project to improve patient safety, enhance operational efficiency, increase customer satisfaction and migrate toward an electronic medical record system.  Hundreds of clinical and business workflow processes were automated in one of the highest acuity and most complex pediatric health care delivery environments in the country.

By using a digital platform for medical records, charting, physician orders, and prescriptoins, hospital managers have observed improvements in staff processes that result in improved patient care, including:

• Staff have simultaneous access to digital patient records when they need them;
• Medical errors were reduced – KIDS virtually eliminated order legibility errors;
• Care providers entering their own orders decreased incomplete orders to nearly zero:
• Medication errors decreased due to standardized ordering and decision support, integrating medication ordering through pharmacy verification and medication administration within one system used across all disciplines; and
• Decision support tools provide clinicians with indicators to assist them in recalling critical information important to safe clinical care, such as allergy alerts, medication dosages and interaction checks.

Using Public Surveillance Systems to Advance Pediatric Trauma Critical Care

Childrens Hospital Los Angeles developed the Pediatric Trauma Critical Care Conference (PTCCC) in 1999, and continues to support the program while other California hospitals are closing their trauma programs and emergency departments due to budgetary constraints.

Each year, conference coordinators use Los Angeles County data to identify the most salient issues for prevention and treatment based on the year’s events as collected by local and national databases.  This enables the hospital to develop content for PTCCC based on actual community need.

By sharing information from the local and national data centers, Southern California benefits from a health care team readily equipped to respond to pediatric trauma.   The results:

• Increased collaboration between the health care team and the government officials;
• Increased awareness and knowledge to ensure children receive the most effective acute and long-term treatment; and
• Improved community environment promoting prevention.