Lots of technology are embedded in hospitals. Here are some used rechargeable batteries for telemetry monitors.
Parkview also has robotic assistants, as seen in posters in elevators.
We are working on solutions for badge tappers that speed up login into the EHR, as well as Dragon microphones for capturing provider speech into the crucial narratives that tell the story of illness in the patient’s records.
Onward and upward.
Our physician informatics go live team, after a day of supporting a 350 bed hospital and dozens of clinics on a new EHR. We are still smiling! The alcohol helps. So does the telling of tall tales.
And so does the Slopper. Apparently the signature food of Pueblo, and we are at the dive bar (Gray’s Coors Tavern) that serves the best Sloppers in town. Buh? Wha? you ask? Think of 2 burger patties on 2 bun halves, drowned in green chili, with cheese and onions on top, sprinkled with soup crackers and fries. ?! ?!? Well, after 12 hours of at-the-elbow support, this hit the spot.
My new quote regarding the ‘bell-curve’ of physician behavior during adoption of a disruptive technology:
The bell curve contains the entire bell curve.
It is an absolute joy to work with this resilient, resourceful, hilarious team, and the IS and IT teams that built this infrastructure over the past year. Let’s go again tomorrow!
Parkview is joining our UChealth Epic EHR patient portal where we are sharing patient test results including lab results, radiology studies and pathology results as well as progress notes, H/P’s, discharge summaries, all of it.
For some docs this will be a significant culture change. At UCHealth we have been delivering on these immediate settings since November 2020, and there will be socialization to bring everyone who is just joining our Epic EHR into alignment.
But first things first. Our docs, providers, nurses and staff are getting used to our new screens, new workflows, new tools, new integrations.
A big win: several provides remarked how cool it was to see patient charts of patients shared with UCHealth in Denver AND, since most of the major hospital systems in Colorado use Epic (Sisters of Charity, Centura, Denver Health, Colorado Childrens, Boulder), patients seen recently at those organizations have their records AUTOMATICALLY appear as we view their charts. Amazing.
Walking the hospital, it is easy to see the Epic helpers: we are wearing red shirts, red lanyards, red vests (mine makes me look like the that old advertisement: ‘ACE is the place with the helpful hardware man!’).
Our command center, with 100% vaccinated uchealth team, is unmasked in non clinical areas, per our state public health guidance as well as internal leadership guidance. It is amazing to see people in person whom we have not seen (other than as Flat-land 2D entities: geek book alert!) in 2.5+ years.
Our team venture out to the floors, the ICU, the ED, the labor deck, all the nooks and crannies where doctors and nurses work. We are calming influences. The adoption of an EHR is always more than just changing documentation practices, it is transforming everything about how we care for patients. We repeat throughout the day: “it will be okay. We are teammates and we will get through this.” When the partnership between organizations goes well, like this, it is a pleasure to build on that colleagiality.
‘This is only our second day on Epic, and it is going great: it is already better than the BEST DAY we ever had on our old system.’
Parkview Health System Inpatient Rehab team
Our go live has had few hiccups this weekend. We even had a mass-casualty event triggered today: 22 car pile up on I-25 this morning in the snowstorm. Fortunately, result from the Emergency department was only 8 patients treated and released with minor injuries.
Step count yesterday: 11,700. Today, 4500. I recall our first Epic go live at the University of Colorado Hospital, I hit 27,000. So, we’re getting better at this. We know the big test is tomorrow with all the clinic going live in 3 campus locations miles apart. The ACE Hardware Man will be there. Wish us luck.
Wow, spotted some legacy charts on the medical floor during our go live. Flashback to 1999 for me: I used to come to each nursing station and walk from nurse to nurse and ask ‘do you have Ms. Smiths’s chart? how about you? You? Anyone?
Then, finding the blue plastic chart, try to read the chicken scratch handwriting. Maybe ask colleagues if they can read this crucial word, or that crucial dose that is illegible. Then write my own illegible order and try to find a nurse to hand it to.
Even in our Epic-enabled hospitals, though, we still have a few remaining sheets of paper in vestigial charts: patient stickers, freshly obtained EKGS, other rare temporary paper that appear prior to scanning. But, no, the Lazy Susan rotating chart rack with 20 pound charts is on the way out.
Walking the skybridge from the medical office building and parking garage to the main hospital. Dr. Caldwell, the hospital’s Epic champion, and also anesthesiologist and also a Specialist training Specialists.
Much as I originally doubted the idea that we could effectively get busy practicing docs to decrement their busy clinical schedules and not only learn the Epic EHR but also Teach Epic Classes to his colleagues. And this has gone remarkably well, and the sense of shared ownership in the success of our mutual Epic go live is palpable.
I love the SuperHero posters, with each of our STS teachers being given a superhero identity. Clever and creative and fun.
Breakfast of champions. Banana, yogurt, OJ, some sliced bread. Back to the wards for more bedside support! Saturdays are a great go-live day since there are few surgeries and endoscopies.
ICU, med-surg floors and OB floor is active as usual. Weekend rounding allows docs to come if a little layers, so early morning is quieter for the nurses getting used to chatting in flowsheets on cut-over day.
Pretty cool items of hospital art. Spotted on our rounds.
At a 4am go live on a Saturday morning, the places to find the busiest docs and providers will be the Emergency department (51 hospital admissions last night) and the Labor and Delivery floor: babies wait for no one. We helped an OB place post delivery admission orders. It works!
Beautiful art throughout the hospital. Current pedometer count since 4am for the wandering CMIO: 6700.
Our new Parkview Health system affiliate is live TODAY 4am for Epic go live. we will live blog, as possible. Follow along! Live actually at 430. Delayed due to an additional 51 patients admitted overnight and having to enter current med orders just before flipping the switch. Whew! We are up! 3500 steps and and not even 6am yet.
Zero Kelvin! Lagrange Points! Infrared parabolas! Light years and Time Travel! wtf?! We are living in the future.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-james-webb-space-telescope-is-in-position-now-its-booting-up/
If you have not been following the journey of the James Webb telescope, here is your chance to catch up. TL;DR: it is going well and in a few months we can look forward to astounding images from further away than ever before, and from further back in time than ever before. I can’t wait. Read the nice summary article from Wired.com, above.
