The Emergency Department (ED) treatment of patients with Sickle Cell Disease (SCO) is often provided without reliable information on current medications, recent complications, and recommended protocols. To overcome this limitation, Point Vista Software, in collaboration with the Northern California Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center at Children's Hospital and ResearchCenter Oakland, is developing a Personal Medical Information Card (PMIC), based on a Smart Card standard, to allow patients to easily present both medical information and updated NIH-approved guidelines for pain management and critical care. In previously devised smart card-based systems, the clerical burden of entering data has been almost universally responsible for deployment failure. The PMIC system proposed here features extensive security protocols, a graphical user interface developed in collaboration with ED and specialist consultation, and appropriate access agreements and instructions. Equally important, a middleware component allows the entire card contents to be constructed directly from Hospital Information System databases, without clerical burden or clerical error. In this Phase II application, Point Vista is proposing to complete the development and test the card in a trial of 100 SCO patients.
Our aims are to develop the login agent, the personalization system, and the middleware to support a clinical trial of the PMIC. In the trial, ED records will be assessed both before and after use of the PMIC system. Outcome measures will assess the contribution of the PMIC to patient care and satisfaction and the contribution of the PMIC to clinician satisfaction. After successful application to SCO patients, the technology has the potential to improve the care of other complex, chronic conditions. As such, the commercial value exceeds the benefit to the SCO patients who will immediately benefit.
| Neumayr, Lynne; Pringle, Steven; Giles, Stephen et al. (2010) Chart Card: feasibility of a tool for improving emergency department care in sickle cell disease. J Natl Med Assoc 102:1017-23 |
