We would love to issue a huge congratulations to our partners at Rhode Island Hospital (RIH). They just went live with Pristine EyeSight on Google Glass in the ER for dermatology consults.
One of the fundamental challenges of delivering care in an ER is that patients can show up at any time of day with any problem. Often times, the ER staff need to call in a specialist. The problem is that those specialists aren't sitting around doing nothing; they're usually busy in their own clinics (which are rarely in the same building), or at home on call. The physicians and nurses at RIH are using EyeSight on Glass to beam in dermatologists on demand. This is a significant win for all parties:
For the patient - the patient will been treated more quickly than they otherwise would have, which reduces clinical risk and allows the patient to go home sooner. Approximately half of all wait times in ERs can be attributed to waiting for the right provider to arrive.
For the local provider - the local provider will spend less time hunting down the specialist in need, and will finish the exam with the patient more quickly, leading to increased throughput. The local provider may even go home sooner and see their children sooner :).
For the consulting provider - the consulting provider derives an enormous efficiency benefit. EyeSight saves them the pain of driving in or walking over. If the consulting provider is forced to leave their clinic, their clinic schedule will fall behind, leaving all of their patients unhappy and frustrated.
For the ER - the ER benefits by improving throughput, reducing risk, and ultimately increasing HCAHPS scores (which have a high correlation with wait times in outpatient settings).
Last week, the clinical teams at RIH went live with Pristine EyeSight. ER physicians are using EyeSight to securely beam in dermatologists to provide live consultations of skin wounds, rashes, and lesions in the ER. Because dermatologists work in fast-paced outpatient clinics, it's been difficult for dermatologists to come into ERs to see patients. Using Pristine EyeSight, we're improving access and outcomes in ways that were never before possible.
Looking ahead, there are even greater opportunities. We started with dermatology in the ER. We can't wait to leverage this technology with other specialties in the ER, and throughout the hospital.
We've been working with RIH's leadership team for months, and couldn't be happier with the results. We'd like to send a special shout out to Dr. Paul Porter, Dr. Peter Chai, and Dr. Roger Wu for their tenacity in helping us through the Institutional Review Board (IRB), IT, and administrative processes so quickly and diligently to make this a reality.
And lastly, as CEO, I'd like to thank our team for all of their hard work to make this a reality. We've been refining the system for a long time to ensure high reliability and performance. Our client success team has also done a spectacular job in training and deployment.