HP at the World Health Summit – Air-Traffic Control for Patient Care

[#1]

The World Health Summit is underway this week in Berlin. This event, now in its second year, brings together researchers, physicians and politicians to discuss ways to improve medical research and healthcare for people around the world.

Joining an impressive roster of speakers is Jaap Suermondt of HP Labs. As part of a session on best practices in IT, Jaap will speak about the state of safety and efficiency within the healthcare system, which he characterizes as appallingly bad compared to other sectors.

(As HP’s Shane Robison discussed in a recent article for the Daily Beast, medical errors account for upwards of 98,000 deaths each year in the U.S. alone.)

Drawing on HP’s deep experience working with the healthcare industry, Jaap will talk about how IT can save lives by enabling a sort of air-traffic control for patient care.

One great example of this system in action is a trial that Jaap’s team conducted with Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital.  Using HP predictive analytics and high performance systems, the hospital analyzed clinical data to proactively identify patients who are a high risk for ‘blue codes’ (normally cardiac arrest), allowing caretakers to respond before the patient reached emergency status.

The result was a 72% decrease in blue codes, and most importantly, the system saved the lives of 18 children. Using the learnings from this trial, HP Labs researchers are looking at ways to expand the system so that it can be adapted for applications across the health care industry. 

You can hear more about the trial at LPCH and HP’s related research in the video below.