With the DISA kick-off approaching, we have been working hard on acquiring the background knowledge necessary to getting the project started on the right track. In this context, Gerolf, Ida and I were given this week an exciting insight into the functionality and layout of two computerized systems that have recently been or will shortly be introduced at the Uppsala University Hospital, namely MetaVision and Orbit. MetaVision is a clinical information system intended to support patient monitoring in the intensive care unit and during operations. Its implementation started about one year and half ago and is now almost completed. Orbit, on the other hand, is an operation planning system whose implementation process will start at the end of the month at the Uppsala University Children’s Hospital.
Two nurses who have been actively involved in the implementation of, respectively, MetaVision and Orbit, kindly accepted to walk us through the main components of each system. In so doing, they also provided us with essential contextual information which enabled us to develop a more complete understanding of the current and upcoming situation at the University Hospital.
As I had never seen what a patient’s bedside looked like in the intensive care, I was impressed to see the number of devices connected to the patient. However, I was even more taken aback by the multitude of paper sheets that had to be filled in by nurses for each patient every day prior to the implementation of MetaVision. As the system now automatically gathers data from the different devices connected to the patient, the need for manual documentation is estimated to have been reduced of approximately 80%. The remaining 20% encompasses such information as the meals and drinks given to the patient, the activities related to personal hygiene provided by the nurses (hair washing, teeth brushing etc.), the patient’s position (back, right / left side) or the evaluation of the pupils.
In regard with operation planning, it is now handled by means of different physical folders containing waiting lists. Orbit is expected to replace those folders as well as to support the documentation of operations, where it would partly overlap with MetaVision’s functionality. However, as no integration of the two systems is possible at this point, the implementation of Orbit will require for nurses to enter twice certain pieces of information in order for patient data to be complete in both MetaVision and Orbit. This situation can be explained by the different origins behind the implementation of the two systems: MetaVision’s acquisition and implementation process was launched by the Uppsala University Hospital before the Uppsala County Council decided to have Orbit implemented as a measure to guarantee a safer operations planning.
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- New Publication: Why Hospitals Fail at Improving the Usability of Health Information Technology - September 17, 2020
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