The Cornwall Community Hospital has introduced a new way to collect data from mothers and their newborn children.
When a new baby ir born at the hospital nursing staff will be employing iPads and wireless internet to update patient information in real time.
The hope is that the new program, called the Better Outcomes and Registry Network (BORN), will help ease delays in collecting the information and will also help eliminate errors.
The extensive collection of data - with up to 50 questions such has pregnancy, labour and birthing characteristics concerning mother and child - will go right into a BORN database. In the past it was collected by hand and then transcribed by a clerk.
"The steps we are saving in this process will ensure efficiency and in turn improve the quality of the data, as well as the quality of the care provided in women's and children's health," Kemi Ogundipe-Micho, manager of children's health at the CCH, told Seaway News.
By utilizing the portability of an IPad tablet and CCH's wireless internet capabilities, data collection for the BORN database can be completed at the patients' bedside, with more accuracy and opportunities for completion.
"We are pleased to leverage our new Wifi infrastructure to include applications which can improve patient care," said Mario Alibrando, director of IT at CCH.
The old process included the nurse collecting the information manually on a paper form, then a clerk adding the information onto an online database. If there were any questions missed they would simply be inserted blank, compromising the quality of the data collected. The transfer was also an area where possible errors could occur.
It's hoped the information collected will help health-care stakeholders, including government and at-length agencies, develop responsive health policies and improve evaluation and accountability.
