Perinatal Quality Collaborative of North Carolina to expand pilot program with Cognitive Medical Systems
– Tasks to include new sites, development of additional mobile, website, data entry, reporting systems –
SAN DIEGO – APRIL 15, 2014 – Cognitive Medical Systems, the emerging specialist in standards-based, clinical decision support software solutions for healthcare organizations, announced the expansion of its pilot program with the Perinatal Quality Collaborative of North Carolina (PQCNC).
The initiative will include the development of additional mobile and website applications as well as a series of computer-based training videos to assist staff in leveraging the new data entry and reporting systems.
“We’ll also include two additional sites that weren’t part of the first program,” said Martin McCaffrey, M.D., Director of PQCNC. “We’ve seen very positive steps in the initial pilot of Cognitive Medical Systems’ Clinical Decision Support platform that has significantly reduced the delay in analyzing crucial collected data. We’re excited to expand this program.”
PQCNC targets critical areas of hospital-based perinatal healthcare. The collaborative includes maternal and newborn care providers of all types in addition to families, Blue Cross/Blue Shield North Carolina, the Division for Medical Assistance (North Carolina Medicaid), the North Carolina Department of Public Health, hospital administrators and state legislators. PQCNC has conducted initiatives that have reduced elective deliveries less than 39 weeks in 40 hospitals across North Carolina by 43 percent and decreased catheter-associated blood stream infections in 13 neonatal intensive care units by 71 percent.
The core functionality of the system used in the pilot program is Cognitive Medical Systems’ Decision Support Framework (DSF) that will be delivered to neonatal caregivers via a series of applications to handheld wireless devices. The technology will analyze the data collected at the point-of-care to determine care recommendations, alerts and notifications as appropriate for a particular patient. For example, DSF will determine who should be notified, how they should be notified and when escalation to an alternative recipient is necessary.
“We’re seeking to solve four key issues in neonatal patient care,” said Emory R. Fry, Chief Medical Informatics Officer with Cognitive Medical Systems. “In addition to eliminating the delay in analyzing collective data, we are also focused in lessening the taxing manual process that currently exists in capturing the information as well as limit the amount of paper reports and time-consuming personal communications that are required in analyzing patient information once it’s received. The initial phase proved very promising and we’re looking forward to continuing the pilot program to fine tune the platform so we can continue to make a significant and positive impact on these fragile babies who are struggling in their first weeks of life.”
The expanded pilot program is scheduled to last through 2015.
About Cognitive Medical Systems, Inc.
Headquartered in San Diego, Cognitive Medical Systems is a HUBZone certified, woman-owned, service-disabled veteran, small business that specializes in standards-based, advanced concept engineering solutions for clinical workflow, decision support and data modeling projects. The company’s domain and field expertise in designing, implementing and integrating medical Service Oriented Architectures enables it to develop optimized solutions to complex problems for a wide range of organizations. For more information, contact www.cognitivemedicine.com.
