Studies Show Mobile Clinical Assistant From Intel And Motion Improves Care Delivery And Clinician Productivity, USA

Main Category: IT / Internet / E-mail
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 06 Dec 2007 - 2:00 PDT

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

Intel Corporation and Motion Computing(R) announced the results from several clinician usability studies completed by leading medical centers. The C5 mobile clinical assistant (MCA) is now being used in more than 1,000 hospitals worldwide, and clinicians are reporting a variety of positive results, including increased productivity, improved clinician satisfaction, better adherence to medication administration protocols and decreased latency in recording patient information.

The C5 was developed based on extensive research completed by Intel and Motion, with active participation from thousands of clinicians and leading clinical systems and software providers, to enable nurses, physicians and other clinicians to more effectively do their jobs on the move and provide better care by connecting them with patient information at the bedside. In addition, the unprecedented collaboration among clinician end users, hardware developers and clinical software companies is a concept now proven by C5 implementations to maximize the measurable benefits of information technology in a medical environment.

Some of the industry-leading organizations sharing their initial study results include:

- Alegent Health in Omaha: 62 percent improvement in clinician satisfaction.

- Children's Hospital in Omaha: 15 percent productivity and efficiency increase, enabling clinical pharmacists increase time spent bedside with the rounding care team and patients in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit to 98 percent.

- Johns Hopkins School of Nursing: 85 percent of nurses rated C5 as important to helping improve nursing practice and increasing efficiency.

- Medical University of South Carolina: 25 percent improvement in patient vital sign charting accuracy, substantial reduction in charting delays and increased compliance with bar code medication administration guidelines.

- UCSF Medical Center: 60 percent clinician productivity improvement and 83 percent reduction in manual transcription of patient vitals information.

"Nurses, doctors and pharmacists are on the front line of care everyday and deserve the best tools to do their job," said Louis Burns, vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Health Group. "As an industry, we need to listen to the healthcare community's needs and work together to deliver solutions that allow them to do what they do best. We used this approach to successfully bring the MCA to market and will continue to do so with future products."

The studies conducted within each hospital examined key performance measures, including care delivery, clinician productivity and workflow, clinician satisfaction and total cost of ownership. Teams from Motion and Intel worked closely with hospital executives, clinical leadership and clinicians to ensure study goals were identified, measured and achieved.

"Motion has been focused on healthcare since inception of the company because we saw the opportunity to put information technology in the hands of clinicians to help them do their jobs better, and ultimately improve patient outcomes," said Scott Eckert, president and CEO of Motion. "We are excited to see this enthusiastic response from our hospital clients. These studies indicate that a purpose-built device for clinicians - combined with workflow specific introduction and software partner collaboration - can unlock the promise of real-time, point-of-care documentation to enhance patient care and clinician satisfaction while improving productivity."

Several healthcare and health IT non-profit groups believe technology plays an important role in improving healthcare. According to Health IT Now!, a coalition to promote the rapid adoption of health information technology, health IT can improve the quality of patient care by providing instant access to up-to-date medical information, and can help contain spiraling health care costs by improving efficiency and health outcomes. The C5 is an example of how health IT tools can dramatically reduce administrative costs and help providers achieve significant savings.

"With the C5, a comprehensive view of medical histories will finally be put at the fingertips of providers for use at the patient bedside," said Nancy Johnson, former Congresswoman and chair of the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee, as well as co-chair of the Health IT Now! "Treatment can be customized based on accurate information and the risk of medical errors can be reduced significantly. Policymakers should take note of how tools like the C5 can advance consumer and provider empowerment, and we must work together to pass consensus-based, bipartisan legislation now to expedite the deployment of health IT."

For more information on the C5 or Intel and Motions efforts in healthcare, visit this link or http://www.intel.com/healthcare/ps/mca.

About the Motion C5

The Motion C5 integrates durable design elements with key point-of-care data and image capture technologies to simplify workflows, ease clinician workloads and improve overall quality of care. Designed based on input from thousands of clinicians worldwide, the C5 brings reliable, automated patient data management directly to the point of care.

About Intel

Intel, the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live. Additional information about Intel is available at http://www.intel.com/pressroom and http://www.blogs.intel.com.

About Motion Computing

Motion Computing is a mobile computing and wireless communications leader, combining world-class innovation and industry experience so professionals in vertical industries such as healthcare, field sales and service and government can use computing technology in new ways and places. The company's enhanced line of tablet PCs, mobile clinical assistants and accessories are designed to increase productivity for on-the-go users while providing portability, security, power and versatility. Motion combines those products with services and unique vertical market knowledge to deliver complete solutions - platforms, peripherals, services and wireless - customized for the needs of a particular industry.

http://www.motioncomputing.com