 |
|
BJC Home Care Systems IS Team
|
More than 300 laptop computers travel with BJC Home Care Services staff across the St. Louis area. "The benefits of these laptops are pretty tremendous," says Don Whalen, Information Systems project manager. "Patient information needs to be documented, and the laptops keep paper use to a minimum and greatly reduce the risk of documents getting misplaced."
When nurses visit patients at their homes, the patients' information is updated through the laptop. Nurses record whether a medicine is working properly or they can just take basic notes. "These laptops have to be very durable because they do a lot of traveling," Whalen says. "A nurse once dropped her laptop and cracked the screen, but that was the only damage done. All of the information was still accessible and completely intact."
The team keeping the information flowing includes Whalen, three clinical application specialists, a senior systems analyst and a system application specialist.
With hundreds of portable laptops traveling around, what if the laptop fell into the wrong hands? "Records are protected on the laptops and if lost, the database will become unusable," says Whalen. "Information is also entered through and stored on a main BJC Home Care central server so patients need not worry about their information being leaked."
"The focus is always on the caregiver and the patient," says Whalen. "Even though the IS team doesn't directly interact with patients, everything we do affects their care. That makes what we do an essential part of BJC Home Care Services. We do our best to be good stewards of the charge we've been given."