Computer-Based Bed Board System Tracks Status of Patient Room

In November, St. Louis Children’s Hospital (SLCH) debuted the use of a bed management software called Teletracking. The software identifies bed status and other patient-care data in real time to expedite patient placement and service.

“We previously relied on printed census reports and verbal updates from charge nurses to identify open beds for patients needing to be admitted,” says Terry Bryant, RN, director of professional practice and systems at the hospital. “It often took several phone calls and text messages to arrange for each room to be prepared for the next patient. Although this system had some inefficiencies, 80 percent of the time we maintained a 10-minute turnaround from the time a request was made of a unit to place a patient to the time the unit was assigned. Our goal with the Teletracking software is to achieve this turnaround at a rate of greater than 90 percent.”

The system also notifies Environmental Services staff members that a patient has been discharged and the bed needs to be clean. This will help decrease the length of time a patient in the Emergency Unit, for example, is waiting on an in-patient bed to be ready.

The bed management software works in tandem with KiDDOS, the hospital’s clinical information system, to provide views of bed status throughout the facility as well as by unit. Teletracking provides a secure report on each unit’s incoming and outgoing patients and pending discharges. Screens also indicate open room locations, occupied rooms and recently cleaned rooms. The software tracks each patient’s age, gender, diagnosis and isolation guidelines, helping nursing personnel to determine the most appropriate patient placement.

“In addition to contributing to the everyday efficiency of the hospital, we believe Teletracking will be especially helpful during times of high patient census, such as during the wintertime viral season,” says Douglas Carlson, MD, director of the hospital’s CARES program and medical director of Children’s Direct. “When the hospital is at or over capacity, we have to be quick at making decisions about freeing-up rooms and utilizing nursing and physician staffing in a way that can best meet patients’ needs.”

He adds, “The system also will help our Children’s Direct service by allowing our facilitators to have real-time information of exactly where beds are available within the hospital. This is important to referring hospitals because state regulations mandate they cannot send us a patient until we tell them to which unit a patient is assigned.”

SLCH joins the BJC HealthCare entities of Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Christian Hospital and Missouri Baptist Medical Center that use Teletracking.