Selected Podcast
Patient C.A.R.E.
Quantaira Health introduces Patient C.A.R.E (comprehensive access for remote evaluation). This platform enables providers to remotely observe patient biometrics from multiple medical devices and monitors and synchronizes it on to one screen. Join Dr. John “Skip” Williams, former Dean of Medicine at George Washington University and current CMO of Quantaira Health as he discusses their new Patient C.A.R.E. technology. He’ll discuss how this software technology, designed for Critical care units can benefit nurses by helping to reduce clinician burden, EMR stress, and benefiting nurses during shift changes by providing all relevant information on their patients. He also explains how Patient C.A.R.E. provides an educational platform for nurses by showing retrospective data to notice patient trends earlier. Learn more at www.quantaira.com.
Featuring:
John Williams, MD
John Williams, MD is Chief Medical Officer, Quantaira Health. Transcription:
Bill Klaproth: This is a special AONL podcast as we speak with session presenters from the AONL 2022 Conference. With me is Dr. John Williams. He's the Chief Medical Officer at Quantaira Health as we talk about patient care.
This is Today In Nursing Leadership, a podcast from the American Organization for Nursing Leadership. I'm Bill Klaproth. Dr. Williams, thank you for stopping by. It's great to talk with you. So when we talk about patient CARE, C.A.R.E, what do we need to know about that? What is most important?
John Williams: Well, I think the most compelling is the fact that we've just gone through this pandemic of COVID-19 and what we've learned, which we've should have learned a long time ago, was the fact that viruses and other microbes pose an existential threat to not only our existence, but how we do healthcare in the United States and indeed worldwide.
Bill Klaproth: Yeah, so that is a problem and it certainly has raised our awareness, or at least I hope it has raised our awareness on that as we move into the future. We don't make some of the mistakes we made over the past two years, that for sure. So how do we correct this? What should we know about this? What are some tactics we can use to address this?
John Williams: I think there are a couple of things that we need to look at. And one of the things that's not talked about a lot is the healthcare teams' safety, particularly nurses who were going in and out of rooms with infected patients all of the time. And so that is why we developed this platform that we call C.A.R.E, Comprehensive Access for Remote Evaluation. This gives us the ability to look at all of a patient's biometric data, and I'm talking about EKG machines, I'm talking about SpO2, SvO2, ECG, and so forth, and put them together on one screen. And by doing that, you are able to predict trends much easier. You are able to see mistakes if they occur and what caused those particular mistakes. And so this takes care of the safety issues for nurses, the healthcare team, and in particular, the patient themselves.
Bill Klaproth: Right. So this is encompassing healthcare team safety, as you put it.
John Williams: Absolutely.
Bill Klaproth: So it seems to make sense, but maybe you can articulate this for us. Why is this so important that we get this right and do this?
John Williams: The reason is because what we're seeing right now is a safety issue in hospitals. We're seeing issues of transfer of information or the lack of transfer of information. And one of the biggest things I've seen as an intensivist myself is the lack of time, the time to communicate, the time to transfer information In a safe manner. So what we are hoping to do with that platform is it decreases the number of time a healthcare professional has to actually go into a patient room if it's not necessary to go into that room. Because think of the steps, the steps are you got to put on that PPE every time you step into that room. You take off the PPE, it has to be destroyed. You put on a new one, that all costs money. And to an administrator, this makes a lot of sense. But for the healthcare professionals, this is all about patient safety and it's about the clinician team safety.
Bill Klaproth: Right. Well, that makes sense. So, as we learn about this and talk about this, so what would then be the key takeaway? What are the key tactics that we should employ first? What's our first step in doing this?
John Williams: The first step in particular with this platform is the fact that you can do things remotely. You do not have to be in the unit. You don't have to be in a patient's room. You could be anywhere in the world, and you're seeing all of this aggregated data together. The second takeaway is that we know that some of the most stressful times in a unit is the transferring of information, shift changes, handoffs between individuals. By having this data that you can see in real time and retrospectively, helps with the transfer of that information. And what we believe is very unique to our product is the fact that now we can also take medications and we can take the clinicians notes, the nurses notes, and we can aggregate that all together on one screen.
Bill Klaproth: Hence saving time, which is really important as you said earlier.
John Williams: And communication. So let me give you a perfect example. You're in a unit and you want to transfer information. You have to rely on your memory. And there may be things that you absolutely forget. But your colleague who now is taking care of that patient can actually scroll back and see what happened during that shift and it will help to predict trends, when a medication is given, if there's an antagonistic relationship. Frequently, we guess as to whether the medication did it, but now you'll be able to see it in real time.
Bill Klaproth: So you mentioned communication and time, that ability to scroll back to see what the previous nurse did is very important. As you said, shift change times are really important. Are there any measurable successes after implementing this that you can share with us as well?
John Williams: We are a brand new company, so we don't have measurable successes yet. But what we do have is we have nurses round tables and we've talked to a dozen critical care physicians around the country to look at this. And all of them are very, very enthusiastic about the future with this particular product.
Bill Klaproth: Yeah, this makes sense. And I love how you're thinking, looking back at the past and thinking forward to how we can correct things and make things better. As we wrap up Dr. Williams, is there anything else we should know about this? Is there anything else you want to add?
John Williams: Yeah, I think one of the most important things is that this is a tool that can also be used for education, education and also onboarding new clinicians to a particular hospital. And when I say education, what you're doing right now in nursing school, medical school, pharmacy school, you're looking at things in the past except that you have to rely on notes. You don't have any concrete evidence. But this way, with our platform, you can actually look back at a patient's entire stay. And if that patient is in a unit for a year, you have a year's worth of data. If it's a week, you have a week's worth of data, that's very real and follows scientific patterns.
Bill Klaproth: Well, you could see how that definitely would be helpful. As you said, so very important when we're talking about the patient care model, education and onboarding is another benefit of this as well.
Well, this is fascinating and really informative and I appreciate your time. Thank you, Dr. Williams.
Thank you for having me.
And once again, that's Dr. John Williams. And for more information, please visit aonl.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is Today in Nursing Leadership. Thanks for listening.
Bill Klaproth: This is a special AONL podcast as we speak with session presenters from the AONL 2022 Conference. With me is Dr. John Williams. He's the Chief Medical Officer at Quantaira Health as we talk about patient care.
This is Today In Nursing Leadership, a podcast from the American Organization for Nursing Leadership. I'm Bill Klaproth. Dr. Williams, thank you for stopping by. It's great to talk with you. So when we talk about patient CARE, C.A.R.E, what do we need to know about that? What is most important?
John Williams: Well, I think the most compelling is the fact that we've just gone through this pandemic of COVID-19 and what we've learned, which we've should have learned a long time ago, was the fact that viruses and other microbes pose an existential threat to not only our existence, but how we do healthcare in the United States and indeed worldwide.
Bill Klaproth: Yeah, so that is a problem and it certainly has raised our awareness, or at least I hope it has raised our awareness on that as we move into the future. We don't make some of the mistakes we made over the past two years, that for sure. So how do we correct this? What should we know about this? What are some tactics we can use to address this?
John Williams: I think there are a couple of things that we need to look at. And one of the things that's not talked about a lot is the healthcare teams' safety, particularly nurses who were going in and out of rooms with infected patients all of the time. And so that is why we developed this platform that we call C.A.R.E, Comprehensive Access for Remote Evaluation. This gives us the ability to look at all of a patient's biometric data, and I'm talking about EKG machines, I'm talking about SpO2, SvO2, ECG, and so forth, and put them together on one screen. And by doing that, you are able to predict trends much easier. You are able to see mistakes if they occur and what caused those particular mistakes. And so this takes care of the safety issues for nurses, the healthcare team, and in particular, the patient themselves.
Bill Klaproth: Right. So this is encompassing healthcare team safety, as you put it.
John Williams: Absolutely.
Bill Klaproth: So it seems to make sense, but maybe you can articulate this for us. Why is this so important that we get this right and do this?
John Williams: The reason is because what we're seeing right now is a safety issue in hospitals. We're seeing issues of transfer of information or the lack of transfer of information. And one of the biggest things I've seen as an intensivist myself is the lack of time, the time to communicate, the time to transfer information In a safe manner. So what we are hoping to do with that platform is it decreases the number of time a healthcare professional has to actually go into a patient room if it's not necessary to go into that room. Because think of the steps, the steps are you got to put on that PPE every time you step into that room. You take off the PPE, it has to be destroyed. You put on a new one, that all costs money. And to an administrator, this makes a lot of sense. But for the healthcare professionals, this is all about patient safety and it's about the clinician team safety.
Bill Klaproth: Right. Well, that makes sense. So, as we learn about this and talk about this, so what would then be the key takeaway? What are the key tactics that we should employ first? What's our first step in doing this?
John Williams: The first step in particular with this platform is the fact that you can do things remotely. You do not have to be in the unit. You don't have to be in a patient's room. You could be anywhere in the world, and you're seeing all of this aggregated data together. The second takeaway is that we know that some of the most stressful times in a unit is the transferring of information, shift changes, handoffs between individuals. By having this data that you can see in real time and retrospectively, helps with the transfer of that information. And what we believe is very unique to our product is the fact that now we can also take medications and we can take the clinicians notes, the nurses notes, and we can aggregate that all together on one screen.
Bill Klaproth: Hence saving time, which is really important as you said earlier.
John Williams: And communication. So let me give you a perfect example. You're in a unit and you want to transfer information. You have to rely on your memory. And there may be things that you absolutely forget. But your colleague who now is taking care of that patient can actually scroll back and see what happened during that shift and it will help to predict trends, when a medication is given, if there's an antagonistic relationship. Frequently, we guess as to whether the medication did it, but now you'll be able to see it in real time.
Bill Klaproth: So you mentioned communication and time, that ability to scroll back to see what the previous nurse did is very important. As you said, shift change times are really important. Are there any measurable successes after implementing this that you can share with us as well?
John Williams: We are a brand new company, so we don't have measurable successes yet. But what we do have is we have nurses round tables and we've talked to a dozen critical care physicians around the country to look at this. And all of them are very, very enthusiastic about the future with this particular product.
Bill Klaproth: Yeah, this makes sense. And I love how you're thinking, looking back at the past and thinking forward to how we can correct things and make things better. As we wrap up Dr. Williams, is there anything else we should know about this? Is there anything else you want to add?
John Williams: Yeah, I think one of the most important things is that this is a tool that can also be used for education, education and also onboarding new clinicians to a particular hospital. And when I say education, what you're doing right now in nursing school, medical school, pharmacy school, you're looking at things in the past except that you have to rely on notes. You don't have any concrete evidence. But this way, with our platform, you can actually look back at a patient's entire stay. And if that patient is in a unit for a year, you have a year's worth of data. If it's a week, you have a week's worth of data, that's very real and follows scientific patterns.
Bill Klaproth: Well, you could see how that definitely would be helpful. As you said, so very important when we're talking about the patient care model, education and onboarding is another benefit of this as well.
Well, this is fascinating and really informative and I appreciate your time. Thank you, Dr. Williams.
Thank you for having me.
And once again, that's Dr. John Williams. And for more information, please visit aonl.org. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels and check out the full podcast library for topics of interest to you. This is Today in Nursing Leadership. Thanks for listening.