“Improving Patient Care”

Community hospitals require an individual approach they do not have the clout for the highest payor rates or the lowest vendor prices. The move to expensive healthcare IT, the demands for care-coordination through partnerships. The Brooklyn Hospital Center (TBHC) under the guidance of CTO, James Safonov is adding technology to remain competitive, create a more productive workforce, and push towards innovation. “The one-piece of health technology is EHR, we rolled out Epic across all ambulatory care sites. Epic is the most widely-used and comprehensive electronic health records system and provides a platform for integrated care to ensure patients have convenient digital access to their health information,” says James. “All organizations using Epic interoperate, which means they can easily exchange patient data to improve patient care. TBHC providers will have the ability to coordinate care with clinicians outside of The Brooklyn Hospital Center, closing care gaps, and reducing duplication.”

The hospital was awarded “Most wired” award in 2015 and five years late required significant redesign to support Epic implementation. To facilitate these efforts and support existing IOT devices, including barcode scanners, infusion pumps, hear rate monitors, medical equipment and more they redesigned wired and wireless networks from the ground up. “We are deploying Cisco Software-Defined Access (SD-Access), which uses a controller architecture and intent-based networking to automate user access policy across an enterprise and Cisco Digital Network Architecture (DNA), which presents an organization’s network on a single screen.”

“TBHC is investing in AI to analyze patient telemetry data from ad hoc to continuous monitoring of multiple parameters, this data is available to clinicians for decision-making to extract actionable information.”

TBHC top priorities tended to shift very quickly once COVID-19 outbreak. As a result, the team shifted priorities to those that immediately supported TBHC, including scaling up their ability to support work from home scenarios, expanding the telemedicine care offerings to keep providers connected with their patients, and focusing on their expenses, both operating and capital, to assist the organization through this challenging time. “I am extremely proud to have a great IT team that is staying synchronized with our operational leadership, and our entire IT team is doing a phenomenal job, sometimes working seven days per week, to support our front-line clinical personnel during these rapidly unfolding events,” explains James. TBHC upscaled their Virtual Care capabilities while developing new ways to communicate with their patients, and rapidly changed to Epic instances to build Covid dashboards.

James ensured the deployment of technologies supporting new approaches to care, such as home-grown, tele-sitter solution on wheels in isolation rooms to provide caregivers a way to communicate with the patient from outside of the room decreasing use of PPE; mobile technologies for patients to communicate with families and provider assessment of patient remotely. “We also designed automated screening capabilities,” he says. “Mitigating Cybersecurity attacks we have seen a doubling of remote workforce have had to enable staff with Virtual desktop interfaces (VDI) and connectivity devices to connect to enterprise IT systems seamlessly with minimal data flow between devices in and outside firewalls.”

For the days to come, TBHC is investing in AI to analyze patient telemetry data from ad hoc to continuous monitoring of multiple parameters, this data is available to clinicians for decision-making to extract actionable information. The ability of such analytics to both assess patients at the moment and point toward their potential future condition is an obvious place to start, as TBHC looks to manage chronic conditions and population health, both in and out of the hospital. “But data-crunching is only the beginning of what hospitals and healthcare providers will need to be prepared to manage in the years ahead if they hope to take full advantage of fast-evolving patient monitoring technology. Wearables and embedded biosensors – such as continuous glucose monitors, blood pressure monitors, pulse oximeters and ECG monitors there are many more advances already starting to gain traction, such as smart prosthetics and smart implants,” adds James. "These are crucial for patient management post-surgery or rehabilitation as they help in measuring the key parameters to support monitoring and early intervention to avoid readmission or complexities.”IE