PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA. -- Texas Children's Hospital of Houston, Texas, is the recipient of the second annual Health Devices Achievement Award for excellence in health technology management. The Health Devices Achievement Award recognizes an outstanding initiative undertaken by an ECRI Institute member healthcare facility that improves patient safety, reduces costs, or otherwise facilitates better strategic management of health technology. ECRI Institute (formerly ECRI), is an independent nonprofit that researches the best approaches to improving patient care.

Texas Children's Hospital's award-winning application is an exceptional example of how the teamwork approach to integrate technology and asset management can lead to better patient care, minimize cost, and improve communication. Submitted by a multi-disciplinary taskforce (biomedical engineering, nursing, information technology) the application, "The Integrated Platform for Life Safety & Tracking Initiative," describes a commitment to adopt interoperability and standardization at the point of care to create standards open architecture for nurse call system network, personal communication devices, asset management, and to integrate IR/RF ID for equipment and staff tracking. In judging this submission, ECRI Institute staff and members of the Health Devices Group's external advisory board were particularly impressed with the integration platform created by introducing standards, master data source keys for equipment and patient rooms, common infrastructure elements, and a SQL database structure that allowed for queries across disciplines.

"We want to honor our member hospitals' commitment to technology management by achieving high standards of safety, quality, and cost-effectiveness in healthcare," says James P. Keller, Jr., vice president, health technology evaluation and safety, ECRI Institute. "This project was a great example of multiple teams coming together to collaborate on a large scale and a forward-looking initiative. The collaboration set a great example for other institutions as they begin to tackle device interoperability and the convergence of medical devices and information technology."
"We are honored to be selected by such an esteemed institute. This recognition will enhance our ability to share our forward looking integrated patient-care technology strategy with other healthcare organizations and manufacturers, and ultimately means that we will help improve patient care standards everywhere," said Yadin David, director, biomedical engineering department, Texas Children's Hospital.

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