At the heart of this proposal is an ambition to extend current UCSF IT research tools to handle the complexity encountered in developing a community-based research protocol.

B. Description of project

Community-based clinical research presents a novel set of challenges not addressed by current IT solutions at UCSF. Clinicians off-site must provide quality care while the resources to maintain and make meaning of the data exist at the hospital.

SFGH Patient Handoff System

Each year, approximately 180 residents rotate through the Department of Medicine at San Francisco General Hospital, servicing over 3700 patients and generating over 60 records each day for the patient handoff procedure that residents carry out during shift change. The current procedure relies on each resident manually transcribing and entering data for every patient (e.g., name, MRN, location, medications, lab results), updating the data daily, and verbally communicating action items and anticipated problems to the other residents.

The challenges of the health care system and clinical practice have increased significantly in complexity and there is a greater demand for all health care team members to be prepared to intervene and apply health care interventions daily.  Improved accessibility to innovative educational materials is particularly crucial to effectively support nursing practice at UCSF Medical Center.

Description:

Hospital-acquired infections may account for nearly 100,000 deaths annually in the United States.  Many such complications may be reduced by increased awareness of risk factors and standardization of management practices— across all health care provider professions (e.g., nursing, physicians, and ancillary staff).  National patient safety initiatives are increasingly utilized by regulatory agencies, the insurance indsutry, and the public, to encourage hospitals to improve quality through performance in the respective associated safety metrics.