Christiana Care honored for using location technology to aid patients

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christianacareThe RFID in Healthcare Consortium and IntelligentHospital.org recognized Christiana Care with an award for Most Innovative Use of Business Intelligence during the Intelligent Hospital Awards program at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference and exhibition, Feb. 24, in Orlando, Fla.

The award was given to Leslie Mulshenock, director for Christiana Care’s Heart and Vascular Interventional Services, and Matthew P. Esham, business relationship manager for Heart and Vascular Services, who works for Christiana Care’s Information Technology Department.

Mulshenock and Esham led a team that harnessed real-time location services technology to enhance communication with patients and their families as well as optimize lab work.

Upon check-in, patients are tagged with an RTLS tag that provides updates on their location to clinicians and family members as they move through phases of care. Families of patients who enter the heart and vascular interventional labs are provided with an ID number so they can receive real-time updates on a monitor in the patient waiting area that informs them when their loved one enters the procedure lab, when the procedure begins and ends and when they arrive in the recovery room.

The team’s work helped increase the already-high patient satisfaction scores and operational efficiency at the Center for Heart & Vascular Health.