healthcare technology

Pilots, astronauts and workers in other high-risk industries follow rigorous safety checklists to help them avoid hazards. Checklists have shown potential to reduce risk in health care, too, but the challenge is figuring out how to incorporate them into physicians’ and nurses’ work flow.

A Stanford team has built a solution: an automated checklist that pulls data directly from patients’ electronic medical records and pushes alerts to caregivers. The checklist, and a dashboard-style interface they used to interact with it, caused a three-fold drop in the rates of a serious type of hospital-acquired infection, the team found. The work has just been published in Pediatrics.

From our press release about the study:

“Electronic medical records are data-rich and information-poor,” said Natalie Pageler, MD, the study’s lead author. Often, the data in electronic medical records is cumbersome for caregivers to use in real time, but the study showed a way to change that, said Pageler, who is a critical care medicine specialist at the hospital and a clinical associate professor of pediatrics. “Our new tool lets physicians focus on taking care of the patient while automating some of the background safety checks.”

Working in the pediatric intensive care unit at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford, the researchers focused on bloodstream infections that occur via central lines, which are catheters inserted in major veins. The automated alerts were designed to help physicians and nurses follow an established set of best practices for caring for central lines. For example, alerts were generated when the dressing on a patient’s central line was due to be changed.

The drop in the rate of central line infections – from 2.6 to 0.7 infections per 1,000 days of central line use – not only protected patients from harm; it also saved money. The team estimated that the savings in the pediatric intensive care unit were about $260,000 per year.

Next, the researchers hope to adapt the automated checklists to other uses, such as helping to guide the recovery of patients who have received organ transplants.

- See more at: http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2014/02/24/automated-safety-checklists-prevent-hospital-acquired-infections-stanford-team-finds/#sthash.g2pYygq4.dpuf

Pokémon GO illuminated the potential for mobile phone gaming apps to engage users and promote health. However, much work is needed to fully understand the mechanisms through which digitally supported behavior change interventions operate, particularly for children and families.

Objective: The aims of this study were

(1) to explore the Pokémon GO user experience from a family perspective and

(2) to investigate Pokémon GO within the context of family health.

Methods: Between January and February 2017, congruent with one of the largest anticipated Pokémon GO updates Gen 2, participants were recruited from parks, word of mouth, and social media to complete a Web-based survey. Participants were surveyed about family characteristics, interest, and experiences playing Pokémon GO and healthy lifestyle beliefs. Using a revised Godin Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire, a retrospective pre-post design assessed changes in parent physical activity (PA) before and after playing Pokémon GO.

Pokémon GO transcended traditional understanding of digital health and uniquely reached across generations to engage users. Findings from this study highlight that, for a period of time, Pokémon GO fostered social and physical well-being for children and families through a multifaceted approach.

read the study at https://pediatrics.jmir.org/2018/2/e10679/