Hill-Rom extends smart room technology for improved clinical workflow

Today, Hill-Rom (NYSE: HRC) announced the extension of its smart room technology to provide a choice of solutions that connect the smart bed and other medical devices to the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) on both a wired and a wireless platform.

Hill-Rom's approach provides customers with a choice between wired and wireless solutions without the need for expensive middleware from other vendors.  The Hill-Rom connectivity platform creates options for hospital staffs to choose the solution that is optimal for their existing hospital IT infrastructure. In turn, this technology can improve the clinical workflow for nurses and reduce the clinical documentation burden for front-line caregivers by automating medical device data transmission to the EMR.  

Hill-Rom's fleet of seven smart beds offers connectivity at every level of care from low acuity through the Intensive Care Unit.  Additional unique benefits include:

• More than 30 real time data elements, including the industry's only integrated air surface information, head of bed angle, patient weight, and bed status information  
• Communication between smart beds and the EMR to streamline clinical workflows
• Timely and accurate clinical bed data with reduced documentation burden on the hospital staff
• Actionable information to caregivers for preventing adverse events through in-room alerts and centralized status boards for enhanced protocol management

"From a flexibility and cost perspective, our customers win.  They have the freedom to choose wired or wireless direct bed connectivity to their EMR without needing to purchase additional products from multiple vendors adding to the bottomline value," explained Mike Gallup, vice president and general manager for Hill-Rom IT Solutions. "Additionally, the amount of actionable information coupled with patient safety applications provide caregivers the tools they need to impact outcomes."

The Hill-Rom connectivity expertise extends beyond smart bed connectivity to also include wireless medical devices to enable the smart room of the future.  Hill-Rom's NaviCare^® Smart Hub™ solution is the industry's first commercially available solution for wireless device connectivity into the EMR. The NaviCare Smart Hub solution provides access to legacy and new medical device data to create improved device management; timely, accurate and seamless medical device data delivery; and critical device notifications and protocol alerts that can be sent directly to caregivers.  

"The Smart Hub technology aims to significantly decrease the data entry burden on a hospital's front-line caregivers and improve clinical workflows," added Gallup.  "This technology is making a difference in the ability for caregivers to deliver smart, safe and easy care."

SOURCE Hill-Rom