Hospital improves patient safety and workflow with OR-Dashboard

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – St. Joseph Mercy Hospital (SJMH) has become the first hospital in the Midwest to install OR-Dashboard™, a new patient safety system from LiveData, of Cambridge, Mass. The system, which integrates and displays patient information from several health care information systems and devices during surgery, has been deployed in five of 18 operating rooms at SJMH, completing phase one of a broader rollout.

OR-Dashboard captures, synchronizes and integrates all relevant data from any medical device or system, transforms and presents it as meaningful information on easy-to-read graphic displays, in step with the operation workflow. OR-Dashboard combines with other visual information – surgical video, Picture Archive Communication System (PACS) images, and instant audio-visual access to pathology, central supply, or other external resources – to deliver a complete, fully integrated view of the surgical case as it progresses.

In addition to its revolutionary data integration and display technology, LiveData’s OR-Dashboard ensures that operating room teams conduct the mandatory ‘time out,’ a final verification of the patient, procedure, and surgery site as defined by the Joint Commission Universal Protocol.

Impossible to ignore, OR-Dashboard is visible from every area of the operating room, automatically displaying checklist items precisely when needed. Everyone sees the same information at the same time.

“This application is a unique and essential element in achieving the desired improvements in team communication, workflow and patient safety,” said Dr. Walter M. Whitehouse, Jr., chairman of the department of surgery at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital. “Providing notifications and procedures to ensure compliance with best practices, OR-Dashboard is a dramatically easier and more accurate way for St. Joe’s to meet SCIP and Joint Commission protocols for time out and other patient safety protocols and procedures.”

The Surgical Care Improvements Project (SCIP) is a national quality initiative aimed at reducing surgical complications through evidence-based care. SCIP sets specific guidelines to help hospitals reduce the incidence of postoperative surgical site infections, perioperative cardiac events, deep vein thrombosis, and postoperative ventilator-associated pneumonia, all of which have been identified as major contributors to surgical complications.

OR-Dashboard monitors SCIP compliance during procedures, while concurrently assessing the need to document a task, determining that it has been done, or providing clear reminders visible to the entire team when something must be done. When necessary, these reminders increasingly demand attention until documentation has taken place. SCIP compliance has been shown to reduce the incidence of postoperative infection and other undesired outcomes, with resultant decrease in patient stays and associated savings.

“St. Joseph Mercy is addressing the same challenges as larger institutions like New York-Presbyterian and Massachusetts General Hospital, and now they are using the same solution, as well,” said Jeffrey Robbins, of LiveData. “The adoption of OR-Dashboard at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital sends a strong message of patient safety to the entire community.”