Pulsara Blog | James Woodson, MD

James Woodson, MD

James is a board certified Emergency Physician, and is the Founder, CEO, and President of Pulsara.

Finding a Next-Generation Telehealth Plan of Action for Your Hospital [Part 1]

By James Woodson, MD on Jul 24, 2020

This 5-part blog series is based on the webinar “The Next-Gen Communication and Telehealth Plan of Action for Your Hospital.” Watch the corresponding section of the webinar below, or listen to the full webinar here.

Telehealth and telemedicine have gone through dramatic changes over the last four months, far more than many of us dreamed possible. Regulations and reimbursement are evolving rapidly, which has opened up the door to many new opportunities for using telehealth. Telehealth is helping us improve both the quality and the value of the care that we deliver to our communities.

However, all this change will almost certainly have wide-reaching implications for your health system, especially in the acute care space. Over the next five posts in this series, we’ll discuss the rapidly shifting landscapes of telehealth regulations and reimbursement and how you can navigate them. We’ll also dive into some of the questions surrounding how to best leverage telehealth in the acute care space.

Topics: Communication Telemedicine COVID-19 Telehealth Reimbursement

2 min read

Risk Is Not Binary: Thoughts on the End of the Beginning of COVID-19

By James Woodson, MD on Jul 08, 2020

I recently read an article that interviewed doctors from San Francisco who volunteered to work on the front lines of the pandemic in New York. They warn that while many states are reopening and life seems in some ways to be returning to normal, it can be easy to forget that COVID-19 is still spreading and still deadly. Pandemic fatigue is setting in, but the fight is far from over.

Topics: Communication COVID-19 Preparedness

1 min read

Pulsara + COVID-19: Provider-to-Patient Live Video

By James Woodson, MD on Apr 22, 2020

Most healthcare systems have telehealth capabilities for scheduled patients, but often struggle with telehealth solutions for unscheduled and acute care. Pulsara Patient provides a HIPAA-compliant solution for provider-to-patient or provider-to-provider live video calls, so your facility can convert unscheduled audio calls into billable telemedicine calls.

Topics: COVID-19

2 min read

Pulsara + COVID-19: Connect Teams Within Your Facility

By James Woodson, MD on Apr 10, 2020

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve seen health systems adopt mobile communication solutions faster than ever before. But your teams shouldn’t implement just any solution that will only work for what you need right now.

What about after the pandemic when HIPAA regulations are tightened again? Will your solution not only allow you to connect your internal hospital teams, but also with teams from other organizations on one secure channel? Does your CC&C solution or your telehealth solution allow you to communicate throughout the ENTIRE patient event? Or does it send a blast alert and then leave your teams to their own devices (literally), communicating once again with pagers, faxes, and audio-only phone calls?

Pulsara works for ANY patient event, and connects your entire care team, INCLUDING those outside your own facility, on a secure platform for a single source of truth. And, Pulsara will continue to serve your critical care needs long after COVID-19 goes away.

Topics: COVID-19

2 min read

Pulsara + COVID-19: EMS Pre-notification to Minimize ED Exposure

By James Woodson, MD on Apr 01, 2020

We learn more about COVID-19 as well as our Systems of Care every ... single ... day.

Many are trying to patch together quick solutions and are grateful for the relaxation of HIPAA and other telemedicine regulations, but what is your Post-COVID (round 1) plan?

Pulsara's COVID-19 package is 100% free and is flexible enough to accommodate any facility type, resources available, and specific COVID-19 management goals. This flexibility is what makes Pulsara so powerful, but sometimes we need to start by solving one problem at a time.

Topics: COVID-19

1 min read

Pulsara + COVID-19: Limit Transfers to Clinically Appropriate Cases

By James Woodson, MD on Mar 20, 2020

As COVID-19 continues to spread, hospital resources are becoming more scarce. Limiting patient transfers between facilities can help ease strain on resources as well as reduce clinician and community exposure to the virus.

But sometimes, patient transfers are clinically necessary. In those cases, time and efficiency of communications are key as hospitals strive to keep up with increasing patient volume and clinical demand. Instead of making multiple audio-only phone calls to complete a transfer, with Pulsara, facilities can communicate via live video calls, photos, messaging, and more.

Topics: COVID-19

1 min read

Pulsara + COVID-19: Mitigate Patient Surge

By James Woodson, MD on Mar 18, 2020

As our communities work to flatten the curve, our public safety and healthcare system must work to mitigate the surge of patients who are infected, or who think they might be infected, to our hospitals to preserve resources and contain the spread of COVID-19.

Using Pulsara's flexible and free COVID-19 package, clinicians can teletriage patients to the most appropriate location, or ideally, stop the case without transporting:

Topics: COVID-19

1 min read

We Need to Pull (Not Push) Our Patients Along Their Journey.

By James Woodson, MD on Dec 17, 2019

I recently read an interesting review on a very important topic in healthcare: DIVERSION. The article reviews how the state of Massachusetts banned the practice of busy hospitals diverting patients coming in via EMS to other facilities, and the long-lasting impacts of that ban.

Topics: Systems of Care

1 min read

Leveraging Innovative Technology to Address the Data Entry Problem in Healthcare

By James Woodson, MD on Nov 11, 2019

According to a recent article in HealthcareITNews, "While structured clinical notes in the electronic health record have obvious value, ... research [published] in JAMIA suggests that real-world data captured in unstructured notes offers more accuracy when trained algorithms are used to mine it."

1 min read

Why Uniting Care Teams is Critical for Saving Lives, Reducing Disability, and Reducing Societal Costs.

By James Woodson, MD on Sep 04, 2019

I've been asked why Pulsara started building a Regional Communication Network for Time Sensitive Emergencies. Here is one of the many reasons...

Misdiagnosis-related harms (death and disability) are concentrated in Vascular Events, Infections, and Cancers. The numbers in this study are staggering, but keep in mind that malpractice claims only represent 1.5% of actual events, and it is estimated that total societal costs are more than $100 billion annually.

Topics: Regional Systems of Care Quality Connected Teams

3 min read

A Holiday Reminder to My Fellow Public Servants

By James Woodson, MD on Dec 20, 2018

If you work in public safety and/or healthcare, Thanksgiving through the New Year can be … tough. It often feels like the world is celebrating vacations, friends, family and love while we are covering shifts, working short-staffed, and taking care of domestic disputes, assaults, child and elder abuse, self-destructive behavior, enhanced psychological effects and all around “difficult” patients -- all with fewer resources than normal.

I am very thankful for mentors like Dr. Steve Colucciello who have helped me focus on the WHY throughout my career. Working with people is a messy business - but worth it. No individual can or should face it alone. We, too, can find joy in the season by acknowledging the reality we feel, working together, and staying in touch with why we choose to do what we do.

Below is a post Dr. Colucciello shared with me, which I'd like to share with all of my fellow clinicians. I want to say thank you to all public servants who choose to serve people during this holiday season and to leaders like Dr. Colucciello who help keep us grounded and focused on the WHY. It’s about PEOPLE.

2 min read

To Survive in Value-Based Healthcare Model, We Must Learn to Work with Clinicians Outside of Our Own Silos

By James Woodson, MD on Oct 11, 2018

According to a recent article published in Forbes, "The move to population health and away from fee-for-service medicine is working to the detriment of U.S. hospitals, a new report from Fitch Ratings indicates.

Topics: EMS Healthcare Technology

1 min read

Mississippi Health System Achieves 8 Minute D2B Time.

By James Woodson, MD on Jul 24, 2018

It's amazing what we can do when we work together as a TEAM.

Below is a fantastic video featuring a couple of our partners working together to improve patient outcomes: Singing River Health System and Acadian Ambulance Service.

The fact that these teams achieved an 8 minute D2B time is PHENOMENAL. Kudos to the entire care team. Watch how they did it below!

2 min read

The Internet of Lifesaving People (Part 2): The Technology

By James Woodson, MD on Jul 20, 2018

A few weeks ago, we published a blog introducing the concept of the Internet of Lifesaving People, where we discussed the importance of arming our healthcare teams with the right tools to empower them -- the clinicians -- to deliver optimal care through integrated, precise communication. This week, we wanted to explain how Pulsara fits into this concept.

Pulsara’s purpose is to improve the lives of patients and caregivers through innovative communication. We’ve helped create the Internet of Lifesaving People, which has been used to help coordinate regional care teams for thousands and thousands of patients across the United States and Australia.

Topics: Healthcare

2 min read

The Dangerous Effects of Ignoring the Interoperability of our Care Teams

By James Woodson, MD on Jul 10, 2018

"Number of patients seen per shift isn't the only metric that matters. Transfers, sending and receiving, are complicated, dangerous, and extraordinarily time-consuming. This is especially so in small hospitals with little or no backup. When physicians and nurses are on the phone and at the desk completing the tomes needed for a transfer, they can't see sick people." - Dr. Edwin Leap

Dr. Leap's unfortunate story of a transfer that took six hours for a non-responsive, pregnant woman with stroke-like symptoms happens thousands of times every day. I have been on both sides of the equation and each side is equally frustrating.

1 min read

How One Group is Trying to Shift the Digital Health Focus Away From Dollars and on to Patients

By James Woodson, MD on Mar 14, 2018

$23.8 billion has flowed into the digital health industry over the last 7 years.

But more often than not, tech startups focus more on dollars than on people impacted by their services. That's why -- according to a feature recently published in Fierce Healthcare, Rock Health has launched The Impact Project. The initiative aims to bring to light the stories of real people who have been touched by healthcare technology.

Topics: Communication

1 min read

Inconsistencies in Processes of Care Result in Variable Survival Rates for Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest.

By James Woodson, MD on Mar 09, 2018

Recently, the AHA released recommendations that cardiac resuscitation systems of care be put in place and should involve "interconnected community, emergency medical services, and hospital efforts to measure and improve the process of care and outcome for patients with cardiac arrest."

Topics: Stroke STEMI Communication

1 min read

The Enormous Cost of Adverse Patient Safety Events [2022 Forecast]

By James Woodson, MD on Mar 06, 2018

According to a recent study, adverse patient safety events across healthcare segments resulted in a cost burden of an estimated $317.93 BILLION on the US and European healthcare systems in 2016.

This cost is estimated to increase at a CAGR of 3.2% and reach $383.7 BILLION in 2022.

Topics: Communication

1 min read

In-Hospital STEMI Cases Have 10x Higher Mortality Rate than Out-of-Hospital STEMIs. Here's What You Can Do About It.

By James Woodson, MD on Feb 27, 2018

Topics: STEMI

1 min read

Save Time and Resources with the Pulmonary Embolism Rule-Out Criteria [Clinical Trial]

By James Woodson, MD on Feb 22, 2018

Sometimes, PE is the forgotten Time Sensitive Emergency - until you are faced with "that patient" an hour before the end of your shift.

James Woodson, MD

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