Mobile Heartbeat Introduces the Camera Module for Sending Clinical Photos

Mobile Heartbeat Introduces the Camera Module for Taking Clinical Photos with its MH-CURE Smartphone Application

Camera Module augments MH-CURE’s care team communications capabilities, enables secure documentation of patient wounds, abuse, and valuables

WOBURN, Mass. — Apr. 29, 2014 — Mobile Heartbeat today introduced the Mobile Heartbeat CURE (Clinical Urgent REsponse) Camera Module for taking and viewing photos via the MH-CURE smartphone application. With the Camera Module, care team members can document patient wounds, abuse cases, and patient valuables held in the hospital.

In compliance with HIPAA, the Camera Module does not store the photos on the smartphone. Instead, the photos are immediately transferred to the secure MH-CURE application server or to the patient’s electronic medical record (EMR) via the hospital’s healthcare information system (HCIS). Physicians and nurses can view the photos via either the MH-CURE server or the EMR.

The Camera Module provides high-resolution photography for capturing clinical images with precise details. The Camera Module allows smartphone ussers to take photos and then preview and annotate the photos prior to saving. When the preview and annotation process is complete, MH-CURE automatically uploads the photo to the secure server.

Hospitals no longer need to rely on standalone digital SLR cameras and removable SD cards for cumbersome and unsecured photos. With the MH-CURE Camera Module on a smartphone, essential documentation can be completed while maintaining compliance — the ability to send orduplicate patient images in violation of HIPAA requirements is blocked.

“In our Emergency Departments at Yale New Haven Hospital, we often need to document patients’ injuries and wounds to help with their treatment and management,” said Allen Hsiao, MD, Associate Chief Medical Information Officer at Yale New Haven Health System. “Sometimes those photos are sensitive, but even when not, it is important to make sure they are securely recorded in the electronic medical record. With the MH-CURE Camera Module, we simply take the pictures we want, review them, and then click to securely load photos over wifi into the patient’s medical record. It’s a great tool, allowing clinicians to easily, yet confidentially, obtain the detailed images needed for patient care.”

The Camera Module has the following hospital use cases:

• Wound Care – Documenting the patient’s recovery progress.
• Abuse Documentation – Obtaining photographic evidence.
• Patient Valuables – Securing a record of any patient’s valuable possessions in the event of a theft or a disappearance.

“By adding the Camera Module functionality to the Mobile Heartbeat CURE smartphone application, we are continuing our movement toward enabling device consolidation,” said Ron Remy, CEO at Mobile Heartbeat. “Instead of carrying a phone, a pager, and a digital SLR camera, plus continually accessing a PC, clinicians now only need one Mobile Heartbeat-enabled device. We developed the photography capability for MH-CURE to provide care teams with the means to obtain a visual record of a patient’s physical condition and their recovery process while keeping the information totally secure.”

Mobile Heartbeat CURE provides patient care teams, including nurses, physicians and technicians, with secure, single smartphone access to all clinical communications, pertinent patient information and lab data. Care team members have a choice of using their own smartphone (BYOD) or sharing hospital-supplied devices. With Mobile Heartbeat CURE, care team members know who else is on the team for each patient and can view the availability and location of other team members at all times. Mobile Heartbeat CURE enables efficient delivery of clinical data and communications to users on-site, off-site and at multiple locations to ensure timely patient care decisions and response. Hospitals save time and reduce costs as well as improve patient care, seeing a notable improvement in their HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) scores.

Availability

The Mobile Heartbeat CURE Camera Module is available now as an add-on module to the MH-CURE clinical communications system.

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