– Rooms set to patients’ lighting, entertainment and other preferences enhance a child’s sense of control
– Children’s safety ensured with interwoven surveillance, RFID and other systems
– Clinicians have centralized view of standalone patient monitoring systems
RESTON, Va., Feb. 15, 2012 – Software AG, a leading provider of Business Process Excellence (BPE) solutions, today announced it is helping build the “hospital of the future” for Nemours, an internationally-recognized children’s health system. Scheduled to open in October of this year, the full-service Nemours Children’s Hospital (NCH) in Orlando will feature state-of-the-art systems for its clinical, facilities, maintenance and other supporting functions, all working together and unified via Software AG technology to create a “smart building” that ensures a comforting, customized experience for young patients and their families.
Children who frequently visit NCH will be greeted by a familiar room setting each time they return to the hospital. The child’s favorite video games, website bookmarks, friends’ lists and other electronic entertainment will be pre-loaded and available in the room. The lighting and temperature can be set the way the patient prefers, which serves to enhance the patient’s sense of control in an “out of control” setting. The blinds covering the floor-to-ceiling glass windows may be set to provide just the right amount of a view of the gardens around the hospital. Once the children are onsite, hospital surveillance, RFID, facilities, clinical scheduling and other systems work together, behind the scenes, to ensure their safety and security. Other hospital systems coordinate in-room maintenance and related activities to occur when a child is getting an X-ray or otherwise out of the room.
“Nemours has long been a leader in the use of technology to improve patient and family care,” said Roger Oxendale, CEO of Nemours Children’s Hospital. “Our partnership with Software AG will allow us to provide better data to our specialists, make our patients more comfortable and improve security.”
Dax French, Senior Director of Business Development at Software AG, said: “Nemours is realizing some striking efficiencies and advances by integrating systems that were not designed to work together. As a result, they can take advantage of new opportunities to better serve their patients, both medically and personally. And for children and their families, that means a hospital stay is more safe and comfortable.”
Inside the “Hospital of the Future”
Nemours is using Software AG technology — webMethods Integration Server and webMethods Business Process Management Suite — to weave together clinical, environmental and other hospital systems that traditionally stand alone and do not communicate with one another. The result of this process-oriented, event-driven integration is a healthcare environment that is more safe, personal and engaging for its young patients, yet efficient and informed for the doctors, nurses and other support staff.
Software AG technology provides the backbone for RFID badging. When a caregiver walks into a patient’s room, an RFID sensor will read the badge and the caregiver’s picture — pulled from the hospital’s HR system — will display on the TV inside the room. This lets Mom know the person matches the badge and lets the hospital know who is accessing which patients. In fact, Software AG helps enable inter-system communication and automation for many situations, such as security events and urgent clinical response events. The integration in no way replaces the expertise of the care providers, instead it frees the physicians and nurses of non-medical tasks such as silencing an alarm when entering a patient’s room and allows them to immediately focus on patient care. Thus, the security systems, facilities systems and clinical systems work together through automated event-driven processes to provide a safe, healing environment.
Other state-of-the-art hospital services powered by Software AG technology include:
- Patient Access Display – a tablet will be placed outside the door of each patient’s room; the Patient Access Display replaces traditional magnetic whiteboards with an electronic board that feeds patient-related data to nurses, doctors and other clinicians in a respectful and unobtrusive way.
- Clinical Logistics – this clinical command center provides clinicians with access to all patient monitoring systems, allowing them to respond to events and alerts. Clinical Logistics unifies historically standalone systems.
- Federated Data Management – by integrating systems and delivering services, data integrity is improved. Instead of systems copying or creating duplicate versions of information, such as login information for associates and non-associates, data can be delivered real time from a single source. This improves system access security, simplifies support for upgrades, and improves the ability to provide accurate audits, e.g., who accessed specific clinical information five years ago.
For more information on Software AG’s healthcare technology, visit our healthcare site at: http://www.softwareag.com/us/solutions/healthcare_sol/default.asp.
About Software AG
With more than 1,000 U.S.-enterprise customers and 800 employees, Software AG’s U.S. operation contributes one third of the company’s total revenue and is Software AG’s largest market presence and R&D location. Software AG has operated nationwide in the U.S. since 1973 through a fully-owned subsidiary, Software AG USA Inc., which is headquartered in Reston, Virginia – also an R&D hub for the company’s core data management and integration technologies. R&D labs for the development of Software AG’s webMethods product suite – offering SOA integration and BPM solutions – include facilities in San José/Silicon Valley, Seattle and Denver. For more information, visit www.softwareag.com/us.
Software AG is the global leader in Business Process Excellence. Our 40 years of innovation include the invention of the first high-performance transactional database, Adabas; the first business process analysis platform, ARIS; and the first B2B server and SOA-based integration platform, webMethods. We offer our customers end-to-end business process management (BPM) solutions delivering low Total-Cost-of-Ownership and high ease of use. Our industry-leading brands, ARIS, webMethods, Adabas, Natural, CentraSite and IDS Scheer Consulting, represent a unique portfolio encompassing: process strategy, design, integration and control; SOA-based integration and data management; process-driven SAP implementation; and strategic process consulting and services.
Software AG had revenues of €1.1 billion in 2010 and has more than 5,400 employees serving 10,000 enterprise and public institution customers across 70 countries. Our comprehensive software and services solutions allow companies to continuously achieve their business results faster. The company is headquartered in Germany and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (TecDAX, ISIN DE 0003304002 / SOW).
About Nemours
Nemours (NAH-mores) is an internationally recognized children’s health system that owns and operates the Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware, along with major pediatric specialty clinics in Delaware, Florida, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In 2012, it will open the full-service Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, Florida.
Established as The Nemours Foundation through the legacy and philanthropy of Alfred I. du Pont, Nemours offers pediatric clinical care, research, education, advocacy and prevention programs to all families in the communities it serves. For more information, visit www.Nemours.org
