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Anesthesiologists at Baton Rouge General have new technology to streamline procedures.
Cox Business recently supplied Baton Rouge General with approximately 50 high-tech tablets for use during surgeries and procedures. The tablets are programmed to connect with operating room machines, displaying vital signs such as heart rate and rhythm, blood pressure, respiration and body temperature.
Anesthesiologists can use the tablets to share real-time patient information with clinicians including vital signs, medications given during surgery and blood loss. This mobile software will help anesthesiologists communicate faster with the patient’s health care team and keep everyone updated throughout the procedure, says Baton Rouge General chief information officer Bennett Cheramie.
“By creating this sort of mobile platform, which allows for more real-time documentation of events including medication administration, we can now better understand the life of a drug when someone gets medication,” Cheramie tells Daily Report. “Being more real-time on those administrations helps us calculate medications for our patients and total cumulative dosing. Also, if you have a loved one going for surgery in the hospital, the floor nurse can now see where they are in their anesthesia journey.”
Integrating the tablets into the anesthesiology department was part of a larger, multidepartment technology rollout, Cheramie says. Baton Rouge General and Cox Business first provided tablets to nurses and surgeons to track patient information and progress. After consulting with anesthesiologists, the hospital recognized that a technology upgrade with tablets could also greatly reduce documentation challenges in anesthesiology, Cheramie says.
