Why Hospitals Need eBroselow

About
Management

Administer drugs more safely and efficiently

Acute Medication administration in hospitals, especially in the Emergency Department and ICU, is complex and error prone. Many of these errors are not at all obvious. Frequently they are not recorded.

Problem: The same drug might sometimes require a different dose, dilution and administration

One might wonder why we can't just say "give drug 'X' for a seizure" and the nurse and pharmacist would just rapidly mix the drug on the spot in the standard way "for a seizure" and the patient would stop seizing. The problem is that the same medication must be given in different doses and in different ways for different reasons. For example, a patient needing to be sedated may only need half the dose of Diazepam IV required for a seizure. How a drug is diluted and how rapidly it is administered also changes with each clinical situation.

Problem: Too many drug doses to easily memorize and communicate

Years ago, there were only a relatively few drugs with limited indications per drug. In that simpler world, physicians, pharmacists and nurses were on the same page. It was clear to everyone what the patient needed. The process was straightforward. However, as the numbers of drugs and indications increased, there became a need to communicate clinical intentions between professionals. These professionals became removed from one another as they began working in different specialties. Communicating intent has become difficult. Furthermore, the mathematics-based communications language chosen for drug dosing is error-prone.

Problem: Mathematical errors are easy to make

In today's mathematics-based approach, the dose is expressed as a formula, typically mg/kg/dose. A patient needing sedation was given a relatively smaller amount of medicine than the larger amount needed to treat a seizure. Unfortunately, as the sheer numbers of drugs and indications grow exponentially each year, it is becoming clear that memorizing a different formula for each drug and indication is not only not possible, but importantly not desirable. A formula simply cannot communicate intention and clinical circumstance.

The irony is that a system that requires its participants to make mathematical calculations is extremely error prone, while at the same time math errors are not apparent to the person making the mistake and not transparent to other members of the health care team.

Problem: Pediatric dosing is especially complex

Children, because of their needs for specific weight-based dosing as well as the fact that they have less reserve when errors are made, are particularly at risk with such a "system."

Solution: eBroselow

The eBroselow Standard and Technology addresses these issues by providing a common language and process that converge at the bedside to expedite and safeguard acute medication administration for adults and children. Read more about the eBroselow products .

Even the most sophisticated emergency care providers can feel uncomfortable when treating life-threatening emergencies in children. They know what to do, but they are afraid of making mistakes because of size and age-related variables.

The result? Emergency healthcare providers tend to not act or delay needed treatment in order to avoid doing harm.

Record and communicate acute care more quickly and accurately

Problem: It is not easy to record and communicate acute care

Because code situations are urgent, caregivers must typically first focus on the patient and leave record-keeping for later. Nevertheless, it is important to accurately record patient status and exactly what medications and procedures were administered at what time. This information needs to be recorded short-term to communicate to the new caregivers who will take over with the patient. It also needs to be recorded long-term for analysis, trends and record-keeping. Recording this information by hand is error-prone due to handwriting and the limits of the caretaker's memory.

An often-suggested alternative to handwriting is the use of an Electronic Medical Records System (EMR). However, the EMRs used today originated as solutions for billing and record keeping. They are optimized for management of patient information; consequently, they are not well suited for the dynamic needs of the emergency room and ambulance. EMRs require the caretaker to follow time-consuming and methodical steps. This includes typing detailed information about the patient and selecting from a complex series of menus before the caretaker can access or enter pertinent information. Solution: eBroselow

eBroselow is a revolutionary technology for acute care that is designed from the clinical point of view rather than from the financial and administrative point of view. With eBroselow, one can record the doses ordered and administered and communicate to others with simple button presses - without ever having to type anything (let alone enter the patient’s name and address). When someone arrives in a code situation, knowing the person’s name and address is irrelevant to the problem at hand and irrelevant to the main problem that needs to be communicated from EMS to the ER or between caretakers.

In contrast, eBroselow' innovate user interface immediately gives the clinician what is needed with minimal button clicks and no typing. In the background, the system automatically takes notes and provides a log of what was done and when. This revolutionary approach is something that needs to be seen to be understood. So please Contact Us for a demo or look at our online videos to learn more.

Prevent Medical Errors for Children

Hospitals have a critical need to reduce errors and treatment time in emergency care of children. Dosing calculations for children are notoriously error-prone.

Problem: Mistakes Happen – Far Too Often

Adverse drug events happen to children three times as often as to adults¹. When under pressure, nurses commit errors 25% of the time when making IV drug calculations for children². Errors are only caught 20% of the time³.

Even the most sophisticated emergency care providers can feel uncomfortable when treating life-threatening emergencies in children. They know what to do, but they are afraid of making mistakes because of size and age-related variables.

The result? Emergency healthcare providers tend to not act or delay needed treatment in order to avoid doing harm.

Solution: Common Sense Technology

Most computerized bedside systems are too complex to meet the needs of clinicians trying to solve real clinical problems in real time. They hinder treatment rather than facilitate it.

Emergency physicians James Broselow and Robert Luten have teamed up to provide hospitals and practitioners with an elegant solution: the eBroselow acute care and eBroselow Neonatal systems.

Above, eBroselow customer Dr. Carlo Oller, Regional Medical Director of Capital Regional Medical Center in Tallahassee, Florida, describes how the revolutionary yet common sense technology works.

Learn about our full line of eBroselow products or contact us to request an evaluation version of the eBroselow software.

1. Consensus meeting of National Experts, EMS-C 2009
2. University of Florida Study, 2005
3. Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto Study, BMJ 2004