Lankenau Hospital
Bryn Mawr, PA
Doctor Robert Stavis, the medical director of the Neonatal Intensive Care Units, designed the unit's Helix application in 1992 to track NICU patients. Helix interfaces with the Vermont-Oxford database, which is a national database for neonatal intensive care units.
The MacNICU system is a comprehensive documentation system that was developed for the purpose of compiling treatment data and also keeping statistical information. Its database incorporates quality assurance activities and includes a report writer. It also produces extensive statistical outcome reports and unit activity reports. Beginning in 1997, MacNICU was expanded to include a nursing documentation system.
The Nurse Manager at Bryn Mawr and Lankenau Hospitals said, "MacNICU was in place at Bryn Mawr Hospital when I assumed management responsibility for this unit. When I needed the system to document patient care, it literally took me 5 minutes to gain a comfort level." This comment is from a PC user who had never used a Mac before!
The staff at Lankenau Hospital went live with MacNICU in March, 2000. They received about one hour of training. The staff has embraced this system, especially with a sick baby. In this case, the computer sits right by the bedside eliminating the need to spend hours charting the data. The nurses in these units document their care exclusively in the MacNICU. The database documents the minute-by-minute nursing care for babies in the NICU. This allows for extremely accurate and complete documentation. It is also incredibly flexible, allowing the staff to add and delete different functions and phrases in a few minutes.
From a nursing perspective, it is easy to use, and easy to teach. It provides valuable reports, and manages quality control testing. The staff has only positive things to say about the system, as it lightens their workload, eliminates double documentation, and hard-to-read charts. And it is user-friendly in every way necessary.
"Helix made it possible to design and implement a comprehensive system that has moved our Neonatology program to the cutting edge of healthcare software," said Dr. Stavis. "Doing all the things we do in our system is complicated; the complexity lies with figuring out what you want, the look and feel, and how the logic will work. Making it happen in Helix has been the easiest part.