Black and White Clip Art of Sad Bible Time Woman

The MIAA system would provide access to medical records in real time.

Palomar Pomerado Health officials say they've developed a groundbreaking prototype of a mobile wireless application that can deliver real-time medical records to doctors wherever they are and at any time.

The system, called Medical Information Anytime Anywhere, or MIAA, would give a doctor with a hand-held wireless tablet or smartphone a patient's vital statistics, medication history and allergies, lab tests, current medical status and other information while on the road or in the office.

Palomar Pomerado Health, a public hospital district that operates Palomar Medical Center in Escondido and Pomerado Hospital in Poway, has designed its system as the medical information technology industry is exploding and many developers of electronic records systems are working on mobile apps.

But MIAA may be a step ahead in one fundamental feature. It would access records from a galaxy of participating hospitals, medical groups and other providers that may use different software, and deliver the information in a common, user-friendly format.

"The power of this application and the reason it's relatively unique is that it pulls together all the patient information so the doctor can see it in one place," said Mike Haymaker, spokesman for Cisco Systems, the world's largest provider of networking systems. "There are lots of organizations that are working on this and have tried it, but I think MIAA is the next level."

The system will be unveiled Monday at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society annual conference in Orlando, Fla. Palomar Pomerado Health received half its prototype development funding from Cisco.

UCSD Health System information officer Ed Babakanian said that demonstrating the Android-based prototype at the largest medical information technology convention in the country could invite both industry buzz and scrutiny.

"Everybody wants to do this," Babakanian said. "I think the novel element is the extent to which it can integrate information from a number of sources. That would be impressive. Everybody will be interested in looking at that."

"If they can deliver, that's great," he said. "If they can't, it creates a credibility gap."

PPH will launch a pilot project by September and PPH Chief Innovation Officer Orlando Portale said he expects the system will need to undergo some refinements as it's tested in the field. So far, PPH has spent just $250,000 on hardware, servers and other components to create the prototype, Portale said, and much more capital will be needed.

MIAA is being developed in conjunction with a $1 billion hospital the district is building in Escondido. Cisco wireless technology installed at the 11-story Palomar Medical Center West will be linked to the application.

Portale said the system is designed not only to pull patient records from various facilities on demand, but to display real-time information from a heart monitor, blood pressure cuff or any other device attached to the patient.

The system also would let doctors confer via e-mail or video conferencing while they all view the same patient information.

"The goal of this system is to put information in your hand, where you need it and when you need it, to make better medical judgments for patients," said Dr. Benjamin Kanter, a pulmonologist and PPH chief medical information officer. Kanter has been working with Portale on the project.

Kanter said he can envision using MIAA when he gets a call at dinner about a patient and can view X-rays on his zoom-capable smartphone screen, or while hurrying through the hospital in response to a "code blue" emergency. By the time he reached the patient's room, he'd have read the medical data and be ready to coordinate care.

"It's all about improving the delivery of care," Kanter said.

That's the vision.

The pilot project starting in September will link Palomar Medical Center West with Arch Health Partners, an affiliated medical group.

Eventually, Portale said the pilot could link all three PPH hospitals with affiliated medical groups and providers it contracts with, such as Kaiser Permanente and Rady Children's Hospital. To participate, security agreements would be made between participating providers to protect patient information.

The real value in the system may be less about technology and more about the working relationships between providers, said Dr. Joseph Smith, chief medical and science officer at the nonprofit West Wireless Health Institute in La Jolla.

"It sounds like it's really cool and valuable," Smith said. "That's great, but I suspect the real value is in the back office cooperation that needs to exist to access the data."

Smith said MIAA doesn't solve a major problem facing the national push to share electronic health records — that is, without a universal patient identification system, records can only be collected from providers the patient mentions.

Portale agreed and said another major challenge is making sure the John Q. Doe at one hospital is the same John Q. Doe treated in another emergency room.

"It's a very difficult problem to make sure the patient in one system is the same as a patient in another system," he said.

The PPH project dovetails with a pilot project recently launched by UCSD, which has spent millions in the last decade to link patient records in its hospitals, clinics and medical groups.

UCSD's project allows paramedics to send pictures and video of a patient to the UCSD Medical Center emergency department while en route to the hospital. Paramedics send the information using an Android device.

"We can capture that information in real time as they transport the patient," Babakanian said.

Both PPH and UCSD are looking at another technological step, wireless sensors that inpatients or outpatients can wear that transmit vital signs to doctors.

San Diego is fast becoming a hub for startup companies working on such biomedical devices. Portale said he's been working with several, including Sotera Wireless. Sotera is awaiting approval from the Food and Drug Administration to market its wristwatch-sized ViSi, which monitors blood pressure, heart rate, breathing and temperature and relays it to the physician.

Portale said designing both the brains of the MIAA system and a "physician friendly" display format for the mobile app wasn't "a nontrivial task."

"Typically, hospitals don't have the expertise to engineer and develop their own software," said Portale, who previously held positions with Sun Microsystems and SAIC. "Many university research institutions don't do it much anymore, either. But I've been doing this stuff for 25 years."

Black and White Clip Art of Sad Bible Time Woman

Source: https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/sdut-wireless-device-would-give-doctors-access-real-tim-2011feb20-story.html