Children's Hospital Los Angeles

In 2011 a leading paediatric Children’s Hospital located in down town Los Angeles(Childrens Hospital Los Angeles) moved into their new Children’s Hospital.  This was a 480,000 square foot with an estimated 317 beds. This new hospital cost $500 million and was to be a digitally enabled facility. While planning the new Hospital they decided to build digital density into the facility. Their primary goal was to “Improve patient outcomes” by trying to reduce the communication errors that contribute to 70% of patient harm. To solve this problem CHLA digitised their clinic by tying all patients’ records to an individual child’s patient record. Patients have a screening of their face done through facial recognition software. Once a patient is scheduled for any form of test everything is logged and tracked on their individual digital file. The IT team prioritised digital communications to make test results and diagnostic images the highest priority so that when the results are ready they are immediately available in the patient’s record, and nurses and doctors receive an alert. This digitisation as resulted in the common phrase “Are  the results back yet” you would be used to hearing from medial Television programmes almost derelict.  CHLA successfully achieved their goal of reducing communication errors that can harm patient. Additionally they also managed to save 66,000 nursing hours. If we look at a hospital that only wanted to reduce staff costs they would have cut nourishing hours or staff numbers. When in fact this may not be the only way to achieve a cost saving measure. 

Children's Hospital Los Angeles