Located in Bochum, the center of the Ruhr area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Augusta-Bochum-Mitte Hospital is a private church hospital with 1000 medical staff and 650 beds. Receiving over 16,000 patients and 20,000 visits every year, it is one of the most important healthcare providers in the local region, serving the local people with high-quality patient care, and constantly developing its capabilities along with the city.
In 2015, Augusta-Bochum-Mitte Hospital launched a construction project aiming to build the new operating rooms and parts of the wards. With one floor of state-of-the-art operating theaters added, the hospital expanded the central operating theaters to currently ten operating theaters. In addition to the advanced technologies, the new operating area has large panoramic windows with a view of the countryside, providing plenty of daylight and a beautiful view to medical staff at work.
Challenges on the way
Although the new operating theaters brought benefits, there were challenges to be overcome in order to realize the expansion of the operating area.
Augusta-Bochum-Mitte Hospital is a medical training center with a high number of young residents, who need supervision of the senior medical staff. Adding one more floor of operating theaters might make it harder for senior anesthesiologists to supervise residents’ surgeries. In addition, longer distances between operating rooms and wards might increase the risk of patient transportation.
To cope with the challenges, Augusta-Bochum-Mitte Hospital expected a monitoring system like the following:
- Providing continuous monitoring and maximum flexibility while maintaining continuity of patient information and data during the perioperative period.
- Connecting teams, workflows, and systems together to deliver alarms to a specific anesthesiologist.
- Integrating patient data into the PDMS (patient data management system) automatically.
Flexible connected systems for various scenarios
Augusta-Bochum-Mitte Hospital decided to adopt the connected systems supported by Mindray's M-Connect IT Solution.
Featuring flexibility and scalability, M-Connect IT Solution is capable of adapting to patient's needs across the hospital - from a plug-and-play module, to a transport monitor and a stand-alone bedside monitor, maintaining continuity of patient information and reducing transfer preparation time to the maximum.
Efficient tertiary response mechanism
To respond to the clinical needs timely, the anesthesia team established a tertiary response mechanism through the M-Connect IT Solution, which supports real-time information sharing, helping the anesthesia team to work more closely.
With the distributing monitoring system, the senior anesthesiologist can monitor patients in different operating rooms simultaneously, helping them to give instructions to junior anesthesiologists or anesthesia nurses, which greatly guarantees patient safety.
Moreover, M-Connect IT Solution allows medical directors to view the data of all surgical patients in the office via the ViewStation to control the overall situation. With the patient summary function, directors can view the patient’s situation at a glance, quickly identifying patients at risk, and directing a timely team response.
The timely and swift communication among the team is crucial for patient safety as well. In the past time, when failed or difficult intubation happened, anesthesiologists in Augusta-Bochum-Mitte Hospital had to take a phone call for help, which took a few minutes for the rescue team to arrive on site.
Now, supported by the M-Connect IT Solution, a “Call Help” button is on the monitor screen, with which the junior anesthesiologists can call for help by just one click, notifying the senior anesthesiologist in charge and the medical director for timely assistance.
Full data integration to boost productivity
The connected systems make possible the full data integration in Augusta-Bochum-Mitte Hospital. Supported by M-Connect IT Solution, the data of infusion pumps and anesthesia machine is integrated into the patient monitor during the surgery. Displaying everything on the patient monitor screen helps the anesthesiologist to fully understand the patient’s condition, assisting in decision-making, and ensuring patient safety.
In addition, the patient monitor can connect with the PDMS, transferring patient data automatically and simultaneously. These connect systems save medical staff’s time on paperwork, allowing them to focus on the patient during the surgery.
“Fantastic system. No need to search for information on different devices. Everything I can get is on one screen. And with the monitor system integrated with PDMS, I did not need to record vital signs, infusion information, anesthesia machine data manually, and I have more time to look after my patient.” --- Prof. Dr. Ulrich Kampa
“Connect teams, workflows and systems together throughout M-Connect, helps us to make efficient perioperative management and align with highest patient safety standard.” --- Prof. Dr. Jan Florian Heuer
Providing optimal care for the patient in the presurgical course, considering possible concomitant diseases, and respecting maximum safety standards is the goal of the anesthesia department in Augusta-Bochum-Mitte Hospital. Supported by Mindray’s M-Connect IT Solution, the hospital coped with various challenges and eventually built the new state-of-the-art operating area for better care.