Smart medicine enhances closed-loop patient management
Editor's note:
Information technology, artificial intelligence and big data are playing increasingly significant roles in health care. This series on many sectors of the health industry is intended to demonstrate the role of advanced technology, intelligent systems, and new inventions.
Shot by Jiang Xiaowei. Edited by Jiang Xiaowei. Reported by Cai Wenjun. Subtitles by Cai Wenjun.
Smart medicine not only streamlines clinical practice but also helps enhances medical safety and patient experience in local hospitals, which continue developing and introducing innovative digital measures.
At Shanghai East Hospital, a digital-based system to achieve closed-loop management for patients with risky data in medical tests has been developed. It sets an alarm level for every item and the system will be triggered automatically if data is in the alarm scope, and reminds both the patient and the doctor who prescribed the test to do timely treatment for the patient's safety and health.
The system will send a short message to ask the patient to return to the doctor and require the doctor to contact the patient in time to prevent any negative events.
"Previously, our staff at the laboratory usually called the doctor and the patient if risky data was detected, but we didn't know whether the patient was under proper treatment. So we developed this system, which requires the doctor to check the information on his phone or computer and make a click to achieve closed-loop management," said Xu Zhaohui, vice president of Shanghai East Hospital.
"If the doctor is not available, such as in surgery and unable to respond to the alarm in time, the system will send information to his department director and relevant health officials at different interval, until there is a doctor to respond."
He said the hospital has invented 18 digital closed-loop management systems covering aspects such as surgery quality control, blood transfusion, and drug management, to ensure patient safety and enhance medical quality.
Since the alarm system was introduced in October 2022, over 56,000 pieces of information on risky data have been sent. "It helps reduce the possibility of negative events and protects patients' safety," Xu said.
The doctor talks to the AI-assisted system to record an ultrasound report while doing her checks.
AI is used to support the doctor's diagnosis in imaging checks.
Artificial intelligence is also widely adopted in clinical practice, and the hospital has teamed up with professional companies to develop a system to allow doctors to record a structured report while doing ultrasound checks.
"Previously, the doctor had to type in all the data to form a report after finishing the check. It was time consuming and troublesome. The new technology solves that problem," Xu said. "The efficiency in ultrasound check is able to improve by 30 percent."
In addition, the hospital has introduced an overall smart medicine system covering outpatient reservations, car navigation, parking space reservations, and in-hospital navigation.
Hospital officials said a poster with a QR code to guide patients inside the hospital has been put everywhere and allows patients to scan the code and follow the navigation system on their smart phone. So far, the navigation is only in Chinese but a bilingual version is under development.
Patients can follow digital navigation on their smart phone to easily find where they need to go.
