Our overall objective is to increase the effectiveness of nursing by providing, at the bedside (the """"""""point-of-care""""""""), up-to-date information used in patient management. Examples of this information are hospital policies, protocols, equipment instructions, guidelines, reference material, etc. Currently this material is in a variety of formats (CD-ROMs, on-line, printouts in binders on a shelf, textbooks, etc.) and is usually scattered in several locations. The difficulty in accessing the information in a timely manner causes it not to be used leading to errors in patient care. This project proposes a new paradigm for the transfer of information from """"""""providers"""""""" (publishers, manufacturers, drug companies, regulatory agencies, hospital administration, etc.) to """"""""users"""""""" (the nurses at the bedside). A key component of the system is the creation of an open standard for bedside information interchange which """"""""uncouples"""""""" the provider from their own display format. The benefits of the standard are: (1) rapid distribution of information directly to the bedside, (2) a single display and user interface for all bedside information (not a collection of videos, CDs, texts, pocket cards, etc.), and (3) a collaboration model in which techniques developed at one hospital (e.g. a treatment plan) could be easily imported by another hospital and rapidly deployed at the bedsides. We have created the concept of an InfoMap TM which parallels the care path and filters out the information necessary for decision support for a particular step in the patient's care. If successful, commercial products include a series of software applications to display the information at the bedside as well as authoring/editing/verification tools for managing the information. A significant business opportunity will be created in providing """"""""bedside ready"""""""" content. Though aggressive in scope, this project parallels efforts ongoing in other industries to address the """"""""information overload"""""""" problem. The Phase II work will build on the Phase I work to fully implement and evaluate a system initially targeted to the neuroscience intensive care unit.
