How Can I Use My Engine or Scripting for Alerting Specific Activities in My Hospital?

Posted on behalf of Marianne Soucy, Director, Solutions Group
Many of our clients find or request different ways they can leverage Summit products to fill gaps or needs in their organization. Recently, different alerting requests have come up frequently. We thought this information might be of interest to our larger client base, since several of our products inherently have the ability to solve this problem.
Some of our most recent client requests/inquiries include:

  • I would like to generate a printout or notification if a patient admits to a certain location, but not all locations.
  • I would like to know when a certain patient presents/readmits at the hospital.
  • I would like to know if a patient admits with a certain Physician or Physician group listed as the Admitting Physician of record.
  • I would like to know if certain communicable disease tests result as positive.
  • I would like to know if certain high dollar tests are ordered without an insurance listed or guarantor listed in the admission record.
  • I would like a wearable medical device alerted via email/text if vitals signs go outside a certain acceptable range.
  • If I receive a physician order I would like to automatically send it to X printer.
  • If I receive a specimen lab order I need to create a Pre-Registration to go with it.
  • If I receive an order on a list of orders that require scheduling or Medical Necessity checks, I would like that process to be initiated automatically via an alert.

There are many ways Summit products can fill an alerting gap in your organization. From a full blown product (Provider Access) offering real time alerting and web based visibility into patient records for affiliated physician practices, to a simple email alert based on HL7 Messaging, there is bound to be a solution to your need within our product suite.
Some high level examples of ways we can solve these types of needs might include:

  • HL7 messages flowing through an interface are monitored for certain conditions (Physician mnemonic, admit location). When criteria present, one or more things can happen:
    • Log certain relevant data to a database for tracking
    • Send an email alert to relevant interested parties
    • Send a text message alert to interested parties
    • Log part or all of the HL7 message data to a file
      • That file can then be automatically printed to a mapped destination printer to physical form, if desired.
    • Create a script to “do something” with that data, which could be anything from create a preregistration in the HCIS, to copy files to a new directory, to running a report or query based on the data present.
  • Area Physicians may be given access to relevant “subscribed” patients, without giving them login access to the HCIS, using Provider Access.
    • Area Physician practices would like to see Lab Results, Face sheets, or other relevant data on a web-based basis, while the hospital would still maintain access control, without creating physician accounts in the hospital’s HCIS.