by
Keith Loria, Reporter | October 07, 2010
AIMS for improvement
“AIMS can be a stand-alone solution or integrated as a module into a broader perioperative clinical information management system,” says Donald Goldberg, Merge Healthcare’s national AIMS product manager. “It is an electronic anesthesia medical record that maintains integrated communication with other hospital and provider systems throughout the perioperative period, such as clinical information systems used by nurses, clinical data repositories used by hospitals and professional fee billing systems in place for the group.”
Even though AIMS systems have been available for more than two decades, the notion of implementing an automated anesthesia record has just recently become widespread within the practice of anesthesiology.
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“AIMS systems are valuable for gathering, analyzing and developing key metrics for improving clinical practices,” Goldberg states. “Quality improvement, compliance and accreditation processes can be automated and performed in real-time, rather than using slow and costly retrospective audits of paper charts.”
Merge Healthcare's Anesthesia
Information Management System
A recent study published in the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia reports an increase in installation of AIMS in U.S. academic anesthesia departments over the past few years. Industry experts further estimate the adoption of AIMS in the United States is currently at about 10 percent and rising, with 15-25 percent growth expected over the next few years.
“Every hospital should examine anesthesia as much as every other department to eliminate bad processes that start with paper records, missing info, bad memories and bad handwriting in charts,” says Dr. Carlos Nunez, chief physician executive for Picis Inc. “Physicians are embracing this technology and the integrated technology is ready.”
Still, for the majority of hospitals, especially small and mid-sized organizations, paper-based charting is the norm for anesthesia operations.
According to Goldberg, a convergence of recent changes in the healthcare landscape is driving an increased interest in AIMS and adoption of these solutions.
