Capsule’s DataCaptor solution helps Sentara to improve patient care

Capsule Tech, Inc., the leading provider of medical device connectivity, today announced that its DataCaptor solution has helped Sentara Healthcare connect more than 1,800 medical devices from more than 1,000 patient beds. As a result of a biomedical device integration (BMDI) strategy to improve patient care, Sentara Healthcare was able to reduce the nurses' documentation time significantly by automating the delivery of the patient's vital sign data into their electronic medical record (EMR).

Sentara Healthcare operates more than 100 care sites in Virginia and North Carolina and is a highly integrated healthcare organization. Sentara Healthcare began its BMDI initiative after implementing Epic's EMR system as a way to maximize its investment. The healthcare system organized a BMDI team focused on device integration as well as a separate biomed department. These teams looked for ways to improve patient safety and nursing efficiency in the acute areas and other clinical departments that chart frequent vital signs. The hospital identified device integration as a solution that would free nurses from the time-consuming task of manually transcribing patient vital signs data and inputting it into the EMR.

"Once we realized the benefits of BMDI, finding a device integration solution was a priority for Sentara," said Mike Freeman, manager, eCare BMDI team, Sentara Healthcare. "We chose Capsule because it was a vendor-neutral solution that allowed the hospital to connect to a variety of devices quickly and add devices as needed. The solution also ensures that data from all connected devices, including vital signs and device data, integrates with our existing Epic Information System."

To date, Sentara's BMDI team has integrated more than 1,800 medical devices across a number of care departments. The BMDI project has improved clinical workflow and satisfaction and allowed clinical staff members to focus more of their time on patient care.

"Healthcare organizations like Sentara Healthcare continue to see Capsule as an important resource for their BMDI strategies and goals. Sentara has already integrated anesthesia machines and bedside monitors for 23 operating rooms across two hospitals and is looking to complete a full enterprise roll-out to six more hospitals by the end of 2012," said Raphael Aquino, technical sales engineer, Capsule. "As our partnership continues, we will be working with Sentara to test integration with dialysis machines, roll out to Radiology for MRI machines and evaluate mobile capabilities for Med-Surg nursing."