Visit to Himss16 in Vegas

Just returned for Himss16 and a lot of experiences and new contacts richer. What a week and what a town Las Vegas are. 

Our purpose of visiting Himss16 was to engage in dialogue with vendors that have equipment and IT software solutions that will help New OUH achieve the goals that are set for the construction project. At the moment in the construction project, we are focusing on two major areas within equipment and IT. They are:

1. The future patient room and Operation room and new equipment in those premises
2. Clinical logistics, service logistics and booking including the ambitious use of a RTLS platform (se paper for more information).

Our focus area was therefore not typical clinical systems like electronic healthcare records and other clinical systems like PACS. We needed to broaden our horizon and learn from the frontrunners of our field - Himss16 was essential in achieving that goal.

New Odense University Hospital will engage in Call for Vendors in 2016/17 and forward until the new building/hospital is ready for use in 2022. The visit to Himss16 was designed to inspire our project team and create knowledge for further dialogue and/or create input to requirements for further purchase.

We were looking for innovative solutions that can change and/or effect the care delivered within the hospital. It could be vendors that have products like:

• New digital beds
• Healthcare Robots
• RFID based systems
• Supply chain management systems
• Unit dose medication robots
• New ways of accessing EHR data
• New mobile equipment as radiology equipment
• New ways (apps maybe) of using our RTLS platform – beyond just finding equipment and clinicians
• IT systems within the clinical logistics, service logistics and booking area and solutions that connects the three.

We got a lot of help form  Invest in Denmark and ended with 15 booked meetings and a lot of informal ones as well. We will use our new inspiration in our enterprise architecture work and hopefully be ready to meet you all again - at least when we make the big call for software and digital solutions for the New Hospital.

Thank you Rebecca and Michael from Invest in Denmark - you were great.

I even got to speak at the following events:

• Invest in Denmark, Foreign ministry round table session with American vendors (50 participants)
• Nordic delegation on “New Technologies for data collection and usage” (150 participant from the Nordic countries)
• Belgium delegation, keynote speak on “Have we forgot the enterprise? Health IT is also about logistics” (60 participants

Digital wayfinding can be challenging

Orientation Strategy and specific navigation solutions will have a clear digital element in hospitals now and in the future. Digital technologies will be more mobile and able to handle larger amounts of data so that the hospital users ( patients, relatives and employees, etc. ) will increasingly benefit from solutions that can support a personal, contextual, secure and clear way of navigation.

The following conceptual elements can be a help for hospitals that want a way-finding strategy and concrete solutions afterwards.

Principles of digital find your way systems in hospitals

The following principles will guide the preparation of the actual digital navigation solutions.

1. Digital way-finding information must be easily accessible and offered on multiple platforms and they must be overlapping.
2. Digital way-finding information has to be context-sensitive, for example, be based on the current location as well as for example the time of day.
3. Digital way-finding information must be specific to the individual, for example, be based on the actual booking and show the way there.
4. Digital way-finding information must be offered to both external (patients / relatives / suppliers) and internal personnel (employees).
5. Digital way-finding information should complement analogue information (signs, letters, colours, landmarks, entry numbers, addresses, etc.) as a single coherent system.
6. Digital way-finding solutions must exploit the existing (if any) Real Time Location System (RTLS)
7. Digital way-finding systems should support the trip To the hospital (home-> Hospital/parking-> entrance->destination) but also support the trip home (destination->Exit-> Hospital/parking-> home).
8. Digital way-finding systems must import map data from central systems such as Facility management’s operating system. Imports must be automatic and for example serve as a subscription (master-slave).
9. Data should in whole or in subsets be exhibited to third party suppliers. This could be addresses, entrances, parking lots, playgrounds, sections etc.
10. Digital solutions must be based on business requirements and wishes materialized in the way finding strategy and clinical concepts on the hospital.
11. Digital signage must be coupled with clinical and administrative data, in order to offer a relevant way-finding information. For example: Digital signage at the local level coupled with clinical booking / scheduling system, so content on the door screens outside each room reflects the actual planned treatments or signage in conference rooms / auditoriums reflect agreements in meeting room booking system.
12. Data on the use of the way-finding solutions(eg type of searches and where they occur) must be accessible, so it is possible to continuously analyze and optimize the composition and signage information based on real-time usage patterns.

Three geographic levels of way finding

Navigation on the hospital should be able to guide the patient from a remote location (eg. Home) through to the hospital. Upon arrival, systemss) recommend the most appropriate parking area in relation to the recommended input on the New OUH, and thus the location of the department, the patient must visit. Intern in New OUH's building stock to be offered a clear, timely and contextual navigation assistance to all staff and visitors / patients.

Digital way-finding information can thus be divided into three geographic levels.

These are:
1. From the remote location (or home) to the hospital
Patients, relatives, business etc must be helped to find their way between a remote location and forward to hospital. This could also be navigation for internal transport between different hospitals within a organizational unit.

2. From the hospital premises to parking and entrance
When patients, families, external suppliers etc. arrives at the hospital, they are offered navigation to the area that are closest to their destination. For patients, this information may be retrieved in a clinical booking system, while external transport will have to navigate to the goods reception.

From the entrance to the local destination.
Patients, families, employees, etc. should be able to get navigation aid within the hospital, which are contextual and based on the relative position between their current position and their destination.

Client Equipment usually found in way finding suites across the hospital

Way-finding stands
Larger stands with touch screens for interactive use, for example in a vestibule.

Digital signs
Smaller screens for digital signage for either use in hallways vertical or horizontal signs or possibly as elevator sign

Digital information screens
Larger screens for use as info screens for use in waiting rooms, receptions and other places where patients and relatives are present.

Way-finding  Apps
Way finding apps on the smart phone could focus on the parking area, entrances or guiding to final destination.

Digital door signs
Small door signs with text on room number and booking info as relevant clinician or type of room.

Digital signs in terrain
Larger signs in the terrain that can show info on contextual directions, overview maps and general information.