The new Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and Fort Belvoir Community Hospital are installing smart suite technology to bring world-class capabilities to the new integrated delivery system in the National Capital Region.
“Installing Smart Suites in the medical facilities in the NCR is part of JTF CapMed’s effort to incorporate evidenced-based design principles that provide patient and family-centered care and increase patient safety,” explains Christine Bruzek-Kohler, Ph.d., executive director, health care operations, JTF CapMed.
Smart suite technology will improve both care and clinician efficiency with smart beds, bed-side entertainment, two-way communication devices, high-resolution audiovisual technology and wireless capability. This technology will allow patients to control temperature and lighting at the bedside. Smart Suites enhance providers’ ability to deliver safe, quality care through active patient monitoring of bed status, patient position, and activity that alerts care providers when patients need assistance. It also facilitates communication between patients and the care team through nurse call integration.
Smart suites include various unique patient-centered features. First, a patient education and entertainment monitor that digitally alerts patients when staff members enter the room and displays that staff member’s information. It also includes information about a patient’s medical team, even when there is no provider in the room. Additionally there will be external electronic signage devices placed outside a patient’s room that displays patient information—including allergies—and allows the patients to update their status—for example, “do not disturb”—from their own patient monitor. These features are all part of enhancing the patient-centered care available in the NCR.
Smart suites will be integrated with Military Health System Clinical systems to give critical care clinicians a single intuitive dashboard that displays electronic medical record and device data without having to log into different systems and view multiple pages.
In preparation for the smart suites a workflow analysis was performed and kick-off sessions were held with clinical staff from Dewitt Army Community Hospital, Walter Reed Army Medical Center and National Naval Medical Center to present the new technology and observe on-site operations. The information gathered will be used to prepare the way ahead for deploying smart suite technology in NCR.
By Breanna Hockenbury, Joint Task Force National Capital Region Medical, Communications support
This article was repurposed with permission from JTF CapMed. To subscribe to JTF CapMed’s newsletter, The Voice, visit http://bit.ly/voicesubscription.”