In his presentation on Clinical Communication & Collaboration Platforms, Dr Benjamin Kanter, Chief Medical Information Officer, Vocera, characterised a “smart hospital” as one that recognises and reacts to new clinical and operational information quickly and efficiently.

By shortening the time to act, a smart hospital’s operations become streamlined and patient outcomes improved.

The key to making this happen is a clinical communication and collaboration platform. 

Incessant notifications

A smart hospital is necessary because of a very modern problem: distraction. 

Information overload in the hospital of today is an unintended consequence of our data-rich digital age, the Vocera executive explained.

Flowing unfiltered from different hospital systems, alerts, alarm notifications, messages and calls can result in the recipient facing cognitive burnout and medical errors. This is because each nurse or physician has a finite ability to absorb new information while simultaneously providing direct patient care. 

This problem is set to increase with the growing adoption of 5G in healthcare within the next five years, especially in the outpatient environment as medical technologies enable new forms of monitoring and care. 

Managing information flow effectively in the hospital environment is therefore critical, ensuring that frontline healthcare workers get their job done without being unduly burdened by uncoordinated messages. 

Making sense out of chaos

The ability to rapidly convert data from different sources into actionable information is a key determinant of organisational success, Dr Kanter continued, requiring solutions to be able to transform data in real-time. 

A modern clinical communication and collaboration platform would receive data from multiple hospital systems simultaneously, determine relative priorities, and intelligently distribute the work to the right person or teams while shortening response times and improving patient outcomes. 

It does this by aggregating and integrating data streaming in from different subsystems before converting into information which may or may not require action. An intelligent system understands that knowing when not to interrupt a caregiver is as important as knowing when a message should be sent. 

Dr Kanter used the analogy of an air traffic controller who orchestrates the flow of information to the right person or team, based on role, responsibility and availability. 

Manual and automated escalations are furthermore built in. If a frontline caregiver is unable or unwilling to respond, messages can be automatically rerouted until delivery takes place.

A communication and collaboration platform should be “agnostic,” as to the mix of devices used by staff members.  Dr. Kanter commented that each hospital role has unique workflows and therefore will have its own preferred communication device. Neither the electronic health record nor communication platform should constrain device choices. 

Dr Kanter offered the example of the smartphone, now used increasingly by nurses in the healthcare environment. Vocera’s Vina, a secure healthcare smartphone app, is available on both Apple and Android systems, giving the clinician full access to the functionality of the Vocera Platform that expedites clinical communication. 

The app is complemented by hands-free communication equipment that can be worn by nurses and physicians under their PPE, that is not only voice-operated but also features duress or panic buttons. 

Implementation of a modern communication platform can result in major reductions in response times to both clinical and operational issues.  Dr. Kanter highlighted two examples (one for staff safety and the other for clinical emergencies) chosen from among the many contained within Vocera’s document library available to the public on their website.  

In the United States, one hospital documented a sharp reduction in the time it took to respond to staff in jeopardy finding that their average security response time dropped from three minutes to one, while in the UK, a hospital documented an average reduction in cardiac arrest team mobilisation from two minutes to 20 seconds through implementing Vocera’s system.

Watch the full webinar, including Q&A, below:

 

Northwestern Medicine is an integrated academic health system anchored by Northwestern Memorial Hospital, a top 10 hospital in the U.S. and the No. 1 hospital in Chicago and Illinois, as ranked by the U.S. News & World Report 2021 – 2022 Honor Roll of America’s Best Hospitals. Northwestern Medicine provides patients with access to world-class medical care, delivered in state-of-the-art facilities offering leading-edge treatment options.

Northwestern Medicine has 11 hospitals, more than 200 outpatient clinical sites, more than 33,000 employees, and more than 4,000 practicing physicians on the medical staff.

Oncology – Northwestern Medicine is proud that Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University at Northwestern Memorial Hospital has received the highest rating of “Exceptional” from the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The Northwestern Memorial Hospital Oncology program is ranked among the top 10 programs in the U.S. according to U.S. News & World Report, 2021 – 2022, and remains the highest-ranked cancer program in Chicago and Illinois. Treating more than 10,000 patients each year for both common and rare cancers, Northwestern Memorial Hospital gives patients access to leading-edge technologies and advanced treatments.

Being an NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center means we provide innovative, research-based approaches to detecting and treating cancer. Through approximately 300 active clinical trials for nearly every type of cancer, Lurie Cancer Center offers patients at Northwestern Memorial Hospital access to the most advanced treatments available, often before they are available anywhere else. In addition, Lurie Cancer Center is a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), an alliance of 31 of the world’s leading cancer centers devoted to defining and advancing high-quality, high-value cancer care. Lurie Cancer Center is also the only NCCN facility in Chicago and Illinois.

World-renowned physicians and scientists at Northwestern Medicine are not only at the forefront of how cancer is treated today, but are also collaborating to develop new approaches to better prevent, detect, treat and educate communities about cancer. They are actively translating breakthrough discoveries into the cancer treatments of tomorrow.

Neurology and Neurosurgery – Northwestern Medicine Neurology and Neurosurgery teams provide world-class, comprehensive care for a full range of injuries and diseases of the brain, spine, peripheral nerves, and arteries of the head and neck. They are at the forefront of treating neurological disorders including epilepsy, movement disorders, ALS, multiple sclerosis, sleep disorders and Alzheimer’s disease. Many Northwestern Medicine specialists are recognized worldwide as leaders in this field.

The program’s goal is to provide the highest level of care possible through a multidisciplinary approach to diagnosis and treatment. Personalized treatment plans help ensure the best possible outcomes.

Northwestern Memorial Hospital has one of the highest-ranked Neurology and Neurosurgery programs in Chicago and Illinois according to U.S. News & World Report, 2021 – 2022, and is ranked among the top 10 in the U.S. Specialized treatment centers include the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center, Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders Center, Stroke Center, Peripheral Nerve Program, Spine Center and Brain Tumor Institute.

Transplant – Northwestern Medicine Organ Transplant Center has been providing transplantation services since 1964 and is an international leader in research, innovation and patient care. More than 400 organs are transplanted each year, and Northwestern Medicine’s program is among the top in the U.S. in patient outcomes and the number of transplants performed. Northwestern was one of only nine centers in North America participating in a study sponsored by the NIH from 2004 to 2010 to assess living donor liver transplantation.

Center highlights:

1. Twenty-six Northwestern Medicine patients who received a kidney transplant show no signs of immunosuppression. This is the largest known group in the world.
2. Among the 213 transplant centers that perform living donor kidney transplants, Northwestern Medicine is number 13 in the country, performing 78 living donor kidney transplants in 2020.
3. In 2020, Northwestern Medicine was the largest kidney transplant program in Illinois with surgeons performing 243 kidney transplants.
4. Over the last ten years, Northwestern Medicine has been the largest pancreas transplant program in Illinois. In 2020, surgeons performed 26 pancreas transplants.
5. In 2020, Northwestern Medicine was the largest liver transplant program in Illinois with surgeons performing 111 liver transplants.

Interventional Radiology – Northwestern Medicine is a world leader in performing radioembolization (yttrium-90, or Y90) procedures for the treatment of liver cancer. Its physician leaders were pioneers in developing and perfecting clinical protocols for this treatment. After a 15-year, 1,000-patient study showed superior results, Northwestern Medicine now offers Y90 transarterial radioembolization (TARE) as its standard of care.

Orthopaedics – Northwestern Memorial Hospital has one of the top-ranked Orthopaedics programs in the U.S. according to U.S. News & World Report, 2021 – 2022. Northwestern Medicine Center for Comprehensive Orthopaedic and Spine Care at Northwestern Memorial Hospital is a premier destination for orthopaedic care. Featuring state-of-the-art imaging and operating room facilities, the center specializes in hip and knee replacement as well as spine surgeries, including correction of spine deformities and complex revision surgeries.

Cardiology – Northwestern Memorial Hospital has the highest-ranked Cardiology and Heart Surgery program in Chicago and Illinois according to U.S. News & World Report, 2021 – 2022, and continues to be ranked among the top 20 in the U.S. This reflects the leading-edge cardiac and vascular services offered by Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute.

Northwestern Medicine offers 10 specialized clinical programs and six niche centers: Center for Coronary Artery Disease, Center for Heart Failure, Center for Heart Rhythm Disorders, Center for Heart Valve Disease, Center for Preventive Cardiology and Center for Vascular Disease.

Urology – The Northwestern Memorial Hospital Urology program is one of the top urology programs in the U.S., and is the highest-ranking program in Chicago and Illinois according to U.S. News & World Report, 2021 – 2022. With one of the nation’s most experienced and well-respected urology programs, Northwestern Medicine offers comprehensive inpatient and outpatient care, including state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment capabilities for men, women and adolescents.

Compassionate, comprehensive urologic care for sensitive conditions is delivered through an integrated, multidisciplinary approach. Care team members are recognized leaders in their fields of expertise, and all potential therapeutic options are considered and discussed with each patient. Together, the care team and patient create an individualized treatment plan with a goal to achieve the best outcomes. Northwestern Medicine also has separate programs for Women’s and Men’s Health and Vitality Restoration.

Fertility and Reproductive Medicine – Northwestern Medicine Fertility and Reproductive Medicine is widely recognized as one of the foremost infertility programs in the U.S. With vast clinical expertise, specialists deliver compassionate patient care. They are committed to leading-edge research and the use of advanced technologies. The clinic’s multidisciplinary team tailors evaluations and treatment plans to fully address each person’s needs.

Gastroenterology and Hepatology – Northwestern Medicine Digestive Health Center brings together leading academic and clinical minds in pursuit of medical excellence in the area of gastrointestinal health. The team’s mission is to prevent, diagnose and treat disorders of the digestive tract and associated organs.

At the heart of the center’s success is a complementary approach with a multidisciplinary team of physicians working to bring top-quality care to patients. The team includes gastroenterologists, interventional endoscopists, surgeons, psychologists and dietitians who work with patients to control the symptoms that negatively affect their health and lives, while also treating their condition or disease.

Northwestern Medicine’s comprehensive digestive health program is one of the largest in the U.S., and Northwestern Memorial Hospital is ranked among the top 10 hospitals in the country for Gastroenterology and GI Surgery by U.S. News & World Report, 2021 – 2022.

For more information about Northwestern Medicine, visit https://www.northwesterninternationalhealth.com/ Call +1.312.926.1089. TTY for the hearing impaired, +1.312.926.6363

This article appears in the latest issue of Omnia Health Magazine. Read the full issue online today.

UCLA Health is among the most comprehensive and advanced health care systems in the world. Together, UCLA Health and the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA are a model that redefines the standard of excellence in health care. Their integrated mission is to provide state-of-the-art patient care, to train top medical professionals and to support pioneering research and discovery.

The gift of hope and health

Transplantation gives hope to thousands of people with organ failure and provides many others with active and renewed lives.

For more than 25 years, UCLA has been among the top U.S. transplant hospitals. For 2020-21, UCLA tied with another medical center as the #1 transplant center in the country, according to recent transplant data provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN).

UCLA transplant programs have maintained a remarkably cohesive surgical, medical and support staff, forming an experienced and committed team to face the challenges of organ transplantation. While their breadth of experience enhances the clinical success of all of the transplant programs at UCLA, what truly makes UCLA exceptional is the combination of its physicians’ vast expertise and its patient-centered approach to care.

An active research environment has led to the development of new and effective surgical techniques, immunosuppressive regimens, and protocols for the treatment of rejection and other critical medical complications of transplantation.

Innovative care to expand lung transplant opportunities

UCLA’s Lung Transplant Program is one of the country’s most successful programs and the busiest thoracic transplant center in the Western United States, having performed over 1,000 lung transplants since 1988, and consistently ranking among the top programs nationally for the number completed each year.

Many patients choose this program because of the experience and reputation of its transplant team known for its highly specialized and comprehensive approach to lung transplant care. UCLA has pioneered procedures for higher-risk, more complex patients. It is one of the few centers that performs lung re-transplantation, bringing hope to patients who have already had a transplant.

Dr. David Sayah, Medical Director of the Lung Transplant Program conducts active research in both lung transplantation and interstitial lung disease, aimed at bringing life-extending therapy to patients with severe lung disease.

Cholesterol-removing gene may prevent heart disease

UCLA’s cardiology and heart surgery programs rank among the best in the United States, illustrating the excellent cardiovascular care it offers to adults and children with complicated heart concerns. The American Heart Association recognized its high-quality heart failure care with the Get With The Guidelines®-Heart Failure Gold Plus Quality Achievement Award.

The program is home to a Cholesterol Management Center, a consultative program for the evaluation and treatment of lipid disorders. High cholesterol — specifically, high low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol — is a major risk factor for heart disease.

In a UCLA-led study, Dr. Tamer Sallam, clinical cardiologist and co-director of the UCLA Center for Cholesterol Management discovered a special group of genes known as long noncoding ribonucleic acids (lncRNAs) that may protect against heart disease by removing excess cholesterol from the arteries.

What is unique about these genes is that until recently they were thought to be “junk” DNA, because they do not make a protein product. It is now established that lncRNA genes play important roles and their discovery offers a unique opportunity for the development of novel diagnostic and therapeutic tools in heart disease.

Shaping the future of cancer care

Learning from the story of genes

The UCLA Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology cares for women with gynecologic cancer and those at high risk for gynecologic cancer based on their family history and their genes.

Its Division of Gynecologic Oncology has a multidisciplinary team of specialists working together to evaluate each patient’s situation and to customize a treatment plan that is in the best interest of each individual patient.

As the understanding of the relationship between genetics and cancer has increased, UCLA Health has expanded efforts to identify patients who could benefit from genetic screening specific for cancer risk, and to make testing and counseling services more broadly available.

Beth Karlan, MD, Vice Chair of Women’s Health Research in the UCLA Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and director of cancer population genetics at the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, explains that patients who might benefit from cancer genetic tests include many cancer survivors, patients newly diagnosed with certain cancers and those whose ancestry places them at higher risk for carrying mutations in genes related to cancer susceptibility.

An internationally recognized expert in ovarian cancer and other heritable cancers, Dr. Karlan’s research and clinical practice focus primarily on understanding the genetic and phenotypic determinants of ovarian cancer, hereditary predisposition to cancer, and molecular biomarkers for early detection, treatment and prognostication of ovarian cancer.

Karlan was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Gynecologic Cancer Society (IGCS) for her contributions to gynecologic cancer research and clinical practice.

Interaction between clinical and translational oncology

Breast cancer is the most-commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States. UCLA Health delivers breast cancer care through the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC). One of only 51 cancer centers recognized by the National Institutes of Health, JCCC is dedicated to promoting research and translating basic science into leading-edge clinical studies.

Dr. Richard Finn, a medical oncologist at UCLA, and currently, Director of JCCC Signal Transduction and Therapeutics Program, is leading a translational oncology core lab for cancer investigators set up to evaluate novel therapeutics.

Finn and his team are looking to find molecular alterations like HER-2 in other cancers, so targeted therapies can be developed to hone in on the cancer cells and leave the healthy tissue alone. They’re also looking for predictive markers that will tell doctors which treatments patients will respond to and which won’t work. That information would then be used to design clinical trials of novel therapeutics, armed with the predictive information obtained in the lab.

Because UCLA is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers where many of the current treatment standards were developed, patients can feel confident that they are receiving the highest quality of care to produce the best outcomes, using the most advanced medical, surgical and radiation techniques available. It’s everything a patient could imagine and expect from one of the recognized leaders in healthcare – UCLA.

Stem cells in the treatment of childhood cancers

The UCLA Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology is a pioneer in the treatment of childhood cancers at Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA. The Division has a long history of bringing hope to patients through programs that include the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, in continuous operation since 1973, which is the oldest such unit in California and one of the first in the nation.

Advances in BMT have dramatically increased survival rates for childhood blood and bone marrow cancers. Other considerations that set the program apart are the availability of the most advanced therapies: UCLA scientists continuously research new ways to engineer stem cells. This technique allows them to use donors who aren’t an exact match.

Dr. Theodore B. Moore, Professor of Pediatrics, Chief of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology and Director of the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at UCLA is active in Clinical Research serving as the UCLA Principal Investigator of the Pediatric Blood and Marrow Transplant Consortium (PBMTC) and the Primary Immune Deficiency Treatment Consortium (PIDTC) and the Children’s Oncology Group (COG). His clinical and research interests are hematopoietic stem cell transplant and hematologic diseases in children and young adults, particularly the use of cord blood as a stem cell source, relapsed leukemia, and infections in the immunocompromised patient.

When you choose UCLA Health for your child’s treatment for leukemia or other blood cancer, you place your trust in one of the country’s most expert teams.

Accolades and achievements

• Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center ranks as the No. 1 medical center in the Western U.S. and No. 3 in the nation.
• UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital recognized for its broad excellence in pediatric care in the 2021–22 rankings.
• Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, UCLA Medical Center Santa Monica and Resnick Neuropsychiatric Hospital at UCLA have earned Magnet Status for Nursing Excellence.
• Our faculty ranks among the top 10 in the nation in National Institutes of Health medical research funding.
• UCLA is the busiest transplant center in the nation with outstanding patient care outcomes.
• UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center is one of only 51 total designated comprehensive cancer centers in the U.S

For more information, please visit https://www.uclahealth.org/international-services/ or call +1 310-794-8759

This article appears in the latest issue of Omnia Health Magazine. Read the full issue online today.