about

Intensive Care Unit (ICU) patients are the most monitored, tested, and examined of all hospital patients, yet deadly medical conditions are often missed. In spite of technical advances in clinical decision-support systems (CDSS) and an array of bedside medical devices, clinical studies demonstrate that mishaps continue to occur related to diagnostic error and/or errors of omission:inaction, delayed clinical action, or incorrect action. Studies have found two major causes for these errors: First, about 80% of clinical “user error” is attributed to human factors of cognitive overload and poor clinical workflow. Inadequately designed system interfaces and interaction sequences directly impact cognitive load during diagnostic evaluation and analysis of medical data. Second, team collaboration and communication breakdowns among intensivists contribute up to 91% of medical mishaps

objective

In critical care, it is difficult to make rapid evaluations of a patient’s condition due to the overwhelming volume of data that is continuously generated. Sources of patient-generated data may include automatic physiologic monitoring and intermittently determined data that is gathered (primarily) from various diagnostic testing sources. Effective clinical decisions pertaining to the care of patients is improved when physicians can easily organize and understand the vast flood of data from these various sources. Unfortunately, physicians and other health care staff typically have to retrieve this critical data from multiple locations and organize it into a cohesive profile of the patient’s current condition. The data retrieved from these diverse sources is usually presented in a form that does not allow trends and relationships between co-variables to be immediately recognized. MIVA consolidates and generated a single display of longitudinal data from all bedside devices, allowing the clinician to observe (at a glance) trends across historically selected physiological parameters simultaneously.

work flow

The solution

A novel integrated mobile data visualization-communication (VizCom) application for the ICU that offers: 1. a user-centered medical data visualization system for patient diagnosis for all ICU subspecialists and team members; and 2. a specialized ICU inter-communication tool that promotes quick and direct access to sub-specialist team members, with synchronous and asynchronous access to and distribution of data visualization models and other patient information for immediate review, diagnosis and decision-making. The technology will reduce intensivist time and effort, communication breakdown, and cognitive resources, while optimizing workflow and inter-connectivity among patient-centered medical teams for prompt decision-making and communication.