BETHLEHEM, Pa. — New technology is being put into place at Lehigh Valley Health Network aimed at reducing costs and improving the quality of care.
Illumicare Smart Ribbon is a platform that analyzes data. The multi-solution platform will collect healthcare data and organize and display it in a more streamlined way.
- Lehigh Valley Health Network is implementing a new app for the electronic medical records system
- Illumicare Smart Ribbon is a data analytic platform
- It will help reduce wasteful spending and assist clinicians in making informed decisions
“I think data is the gold, or the oil, for health care now, in general in the world, but particularly for health care," LVHN Chief Health Information Officer Maulik Purohit said.
"And the idea is: Can we use that data in a meaningful way, in a predictive way that converts raw data into knowledge and insight?”
Purohit said it will help clinicians make more informed decisions on care, such as the length of stays, medications and lab orders.
“Whether that’s duplicating tests that we don't need, whether it be X-rays, really all the other things, if we're gonna eliminate that waste what that allows us to do is lose the cost with the entire system," Purohit said.
'Patients get better outcomes'
“It allows us to have patients get better outcomes and allows patients to get home better and faster in a more meaningful way and have less of a hospital bill, ideally.
Purohit said Illumicare Smart Ribbon will assist clinicians in making informed decisions.
"“It gives them support in terms of what's the right thing to do in terms of patient safety and quality and at the same time, what are some of the lower cost ways of achieving the same outcome."Lehigh Valley Health Network Chief Health Information Officer Maulik Purohit
“It gives them support in terms of what's the right thing to do in terms of patient safety and quality and at the same time, what are some of the lower cost ways of achieving the same outcome,” he said.
"Clinicians are experts in their field of care. They know what they're doing. They're your master craftsman at what they do. The additional insight that we're providing them is like a GPS device or driver.”
The hospital system already has a contract with Illumicare. Now it has to get the system in place and train staff.
“One is finding a partner that can help us with the data analytics because the first part is knowing, right, if we don't know what we need to do, it's hard to do the right thing,” Purohit said.
“Then the other part of it is the clinical integration and implementation with this, then setting that up for our clinicians to use that product in a meaningful way.
"Education, insights, design decisions, those kinds of things to make the product better.”
LVHN expects to have it up and running by the end of this year.
