By Healthcare Facilities Today

Integrating medical devices with electronic health records in order to facilitate meaningful use is possible, but requires facilities to consider how to support increased connectivity requirements.

Regardless of the piece of equipment gathering data, the majority still cannot interface directly with the electronic health record (EHR). This is because the types and formats of information are not standardized. While connectivity solutions exist from medical device vendors and (EHR) vendors, third-party vendors tend to provide the most widely applicable systems, says an article in Health Facilities Management.

Integration solutions are all based on characterizing the medical device as "episodic" or "continuous." An episodic device, such as a vital signs monitor, is shared by many patients and so uses a point-of-care (POC) component to associate the patient with the device and send the patient's information to the server.

Continuous devices might be stand-alone or networked. Stand-alone continuous devices, such as ventilators, stay with one patient over a longer period of time but still require a POC component either attached to the device itself or located in the patient's room in order to transmit data from the device to the server. Conversely, continuous devices that are routinely already networked, such as networked infusion pumps, don't need a POC component.

In order to support this connectivity, facilities need to consider where equipment is located within rooms, especially if it is meant to work with a stationary POC component. Patient rooms will also require more network jacks and power outlets, especially as some medical devices will have to be hardwired. Boosting the facility's wireless infrastructure and creating redundancies will be necessary as more data flows over the network and there is less tolerance for lags or drops in information transfer.  

Read the article.