Transforming Care Through the Power of Data
24 hours a day, 365 days a year, hospitals run on process and data. There’s no other choice when caring for those with life-threatening illnesses.
And while improving the way those processes and data are handled can make a big difference in patient outcomes, creating those improvements is no small feat. It takes input from multiple teams across many disciplines, each with a heavy load of competing priorities, meetings, and day-to-day projects.
It’s a challenge, but a familiar one for big organizations with life-changing work to do. That’s why, in January 2018, Seattle Children’s, Slalom, and Microsoft joined forces to organize the hospital’s first-ever hackathon which was focused on data innovation.
MAKING A BIG DIFFERENCE WITH BIG DATA
Inspired to bring their perspective to the table, Seattle Children’s employees submitted solutions they saw a need for first hand. With a common goal in mind of improving patient care, cross-functional teams were assembled. Front line staff including nurses, doctors and pharmacists worked side-by-side with data and systems experts to create new ways to make a big impact. Six teams were given 48 hours free from their day-to-day activities to focus on using data in innovative ways.
AND THE WINNER IS…
On January 29, the teams gathered to present their solutions to a high-power panel of Seattle Children’s leadership including Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Mark Del Beccaro; Chief of Digital Innovation, Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson; Chief Information Officer, Dr. Zafar Chaudry; Associate Chief Information Officer, Dr. Eric Tham; Chief Data Officer, Ryan Sousa; and Principal Systems Architect, Nigel Hartell.
Judges took in to consideration many factors, including: innovation, complexity, originality, potential impact, quality of the end result, as well as collaboration among teams. After a morning full of presentations, two teams emerged victorious:
Reducing CLABSI Rates
The CLABSI (Central Line-associated Bloodstream Infection) team developed a new data visualization tool to identify patients using central lines at highest risk of infection, helping hospital staff stop infections before they start. In the simplest terms, central lines are long-term IVs inserted into larger veins than typical IVs. Central lines can be used for various treatments and tests, but require more care than simple short term IV.
IV Nutrition Ordering
Some of Seattle Children’s patients are unable to eat, relying on IV fluids for nourishment. These fluids are created specifically for each patient by nutritionists, but the process is paper and labor intensive, requiring a trail of forms, faxes, and duplicate copies to get children the nutrition they need. The new system created by the IV nutrition ordering team introduced a prototype form for collecting data from nutritionists and automating the process of coordinating, mixing and delivering nutritional compounds.
The four runners up were:
Patient Identity Management:
A new global patient identifier system to match the records of patients under Seattle Children’s care and outside the hospital’s walls.
MCB App:
A measurement-based care application to support behavior health assessment for the Department of Psychiatry.
Nurse Load Leveling Tool:
An emergency department nurse load leveling system to match nurses to patients based on current capacity and anticipated demand.
All Hail InSeq:
A multi-institution collaborative to build a reference architecture for genomics and precision medicine.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Seattle Children’s is already exploring how to implement many of the ideas that came out of this first hackathon. Each team identified an opportunity for improvement and were successful in working together to develop innovative solutions.
“It’s inspiring to see such diverse groups come together to create innovative ways we can support our patients in such a short time frame,” said Nigel Hartell. “This event was a testament to the ingenuity of our team at Seattle Children’s and the power of the hackathon format to create real impact in a short time frame.”
Seattle Children’s Enterprise Analytics team, Slalom, and Microsoft are already in the planning phase for a second hackathon in November.
