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Is your job in healthcare to focus on and serve only the patient or is it also to serve others on the TEAM who are caring for the patient?

Patient centric healthcare as we currently practice it is a failed philosophy. We focus on serving the patient for a finite moment in time even though the patient's journey extends well beyond our specific tasks.

In this mindset, we have a system where we — yes, you and I — cause 400,000 deaths per year and 10,000 serious medical complications every day, costing the U.S. an estimated one trillion dollars a year. Additionally, 80% of these errors occur secondary to miscommunication during transitions of care.

Patient centric healthcare is not enough.  We need to realize that just serving the patient is not enough — we ALSO need to serve the fellow clinicians who are serving the patient. We need patient- and people-centric healthcare.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center is the first hospital on the west coast to use the healthcare communication platform, Pulsara, and the first in the nation to use the company's Prehospital Alerting Package.

BOZEMAN, MT -- SEPTEMBER 12, 2017 -- Stroke is a leading cause of disability and death in the U.S., with close to 800,000 cases each year. The outcome can be devastating, and every delay in care impacts a stroke survivor’s chance at a full recovery. To minimize those delays and make emergency communication more efficient, PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center in Vancouver, Washington, has partnered with several local EMS services to begin using the healthcare communication platform, Pulsara.

PeaceHealth Southwest is the first hospital on the west coast to use Pulsara for STEMI and stroke communications both with EMS and within the hospital, and the first in the nation to use the company's Prehospital Alerting Package for all EMS-transferred patients.

EDITOR'S NOTE: The following content originally appeared on EMS1.com as paid content sponsored by Pulsara. Special thanks to our guest blogger, Peter Antevy, MD.

Follow these 10 steps when treating pediatric cardiac arrest to save lives.

Pulsara was featured in a news clip and article from Fox 45, a local Miami news station, as a service that could "change the game for stroke treatment." The article pointed out that during medical emergencies, every second matters -- particularly when it comes to stroke. "Time is tissue; brain tissue, that is," stated the authors.

Healthcare systems must continue to adopt mobile-friendly platforms to meet users' expectations and offer high-quality care.

Many industries have overhauled their businesses to meet consumers’ expectations of using their mobile devices to do everything from checking in for a flight to ordering takeout food. The healthcare industry has been slower to adopt mobile-friendly platforms, but it is increasingly doing so to meet patients’ and health professionals’ needs. But simply taking current methods of communication and putting them on smartphones is not sufficient — platforms must capitalize on the many advantages mobile technology offers in order to truly transform and improve healthcare.

**This post is an excerpt from our eBook, "It's About Time: Addressing the Communication Crisis in Emergency Medicine." Download the full eBook here!**

Researchers find a significant number of communication failures at hospitals. Could they be contributing to preventable patient deaths and disability?

A study in Toronto found that over a two-month period, 14 percent of all pages went to the wrong physician and nearly half of those were emergent or urgent communications.

A study that examined communication failures at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the Toronto General Hospital in Toronto, Canada, found that over a two-month period, 14 percent of pages were sent to the wrong physician.[12] That’s an estimated 4,300 misdirected pages each year—half of which are related to emergency or urgent matters.

Physician collaboration is associated with fewer patient deaths, readmissions, and emergency room visits.

A study of patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) found that when physicians collaborated more, patients had a 24 percent lower rate of emergency room visits and hospital readmissions, and a 28 percent lower rate of death.[10]

**This post is an excerpt from our eBook, "It's About Time: Addressing the Communication Crisis in Emergency Medicine." Download the full eBook here!**

Physician groups that worked more closely together in caring for patients who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) procedures were able to produce better patient outcomes, according to recent research.[11] The study examined claims data for 251,630 patients who underwent CABG between 2008 and 2011; the patients received care from 466,243 physicians across more than a thousand health systems. At 60 days post-procedure, patients treated by physician teams with higher levels of cooperation had:

Communication is key when it comes to emergency medicine, and the information you include in your patient radio report can save valuable time for the patient further down the care continuum if done properly. 

In this episode of Progressive Paramedicine, Brandon Means discusses the three most critical components of the patient radio report and what you can do to help put an end to the communication crisis in emergency medicine. 

Listen to this post on the go with Pulsara's new Podcast!

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According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the total number of ED visits in the U.S. in 2009 was 16.5% higher than two years before. A consequence of this increased ED traffic is that the average time a patient has to wait to see a provider increased by 25% from 46.5 minutes to 58.1 minutes between 2003 and 2009. Furthermore, this increased traffic strains hospital resources and can be costly for all parties.