Tech talk: A digital health startup, medical office of the future and RTLS

StartUp Health launches new center with help of Children’s Hospital Colorado

Aerial view of the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, where StartUp Health Colorado will co-locate.

Photo courtesy of INSERT NAME HERE (Lowercase)

Children’s Hospital Colorado has gotten in on the ground floor of the new StartUp Health Colorado as a founding partner. The digital innovation hub will reside on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora and co-locate with Children’s Hospital Colorado’s recently launched Center for Innovation.

StartUp Health Colorado’s mission is to build digital health technologies that will enrich and save lives.

"The Center for Innovation, and our partnership with StartUp Health Colorado, represents the realization of our visionary strategic plan to connect our amazing entrepreneurial faculty and staff to a world of outstanding innovators," says Dr. Robin Deterding, medical director of Children's Colorado's Center for Innovation. "Through these efforts, I am convinced that we'll develop unique, powerful and life-changing solutions that will catapult us forward in the quest to improve the health and well-being of children."

Physicians explore medical office of the future

An exhibit at the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) conference walked attendees through six concepts that could transform the way family physicians interact with patients. Visitors took a tour that began in a small theater with a short video introduction before moving through six stations, including:

• The Care Anywhere hub explores uses for remote monitoring, telemedicine and other tools to connect physicians with their patients from any location.
• The Patient Engagement center reimagines traditional waiting rooms into a place where patients can use technology to actively engage in their care.
• The Clinical Team hub offers solutions for staff to engage in short huddles or longer meetings to plan patient care.
• The Exam Room space gave physicians a glimpse into the future with patient-friendly furniture combined with advanced technology to help facilitate documentation of patient visits and collaboration with specialists.
• The Population Health center delves into the tools, processes and reorganized spaces that can help to foster teamwork.
• The Personalized Consultation hub envisions a private setting where physicians and patients can meet face-to-face and use technology to consult with specialists remotely.

The exhibit was held at AAFP’s 2016 Family Medicine Experience Sept. 20–24 in Orlando, Fla.

Hospital deploys RTLS system to keep staff safe

Following an incident in which members of a patient’s family prevented a nurse from leaving the patient’s room, Valley Hospital in Ridgewood, N.J., installed a wireless real-time locating system (RTLS) to monitor the locations and identities of staff members.

According to RFID Journal, staff members wear an emergency badge with a simple button that when pressed sends a distress call to security personnel, telling them where the person is located and what he or she looks like.

Before the hospital deployed the system, only 50 percent of personnel reported a sense of workplace safety. Once those workers began using the RTLS badge, that figure rose to 85 percent.