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Pulsara 6.0 Changes the World... [Press Release]

Pulsara 6.0 Changes the World... [Press Release]

...Well, not really. But it does provide the foundation for future communication across regions.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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Bozeman, MT – May 9, 2017 – Pulsara announced today the release of their app version 6.0, which offers flexibility for anybody at the hospital to be added to the team, or to change the team structure on the fly.

"Pretty rad, right?" queried Flight Paramedic and Chief Marketing Officer, Kris Kaull.

The company stated that existing clients have asked them to make Pulsara more adaptable to their specific workflows. "Fulfilling this request requires adding flexibility to the application and platform -- and the concept of flexibility almost inevitably leads to increased complexity. That being said, one of our core values is to simplify. At Pulsara, we reduce complexity through innovation. Walking the line between these two competing priorities is a challenge, but we made it happen!" said Senior Software Engineer, Eric Barnes. "With the release of 6.0, Pulsara provides new workflow and alerting flexibility while remaining simple to use."

Pulsara provided the following examples of this new functionality:

  • All users now have the ability to manage their own on-call status, including physicians. The team no longer has to review the call schedule and select the physician users prior to activation. With all team members managing their own call status, the entire care team can now be activated with one push of a button. SIMPLE. QUICK.
     
  • Patient needs can quickly change. The latest version allows all team members visibility into who has seen what — with the increased capability of adding additional providers. Do you often need a consulting and interventional Cardiologist assigned? What about assigning additional residents? With 6.0, an unlimited number of specialists can be assigned to a single case!
     
  • And remember, we’re all human. Are you worried someone may have forgotten to toggle on call? Don't fret. You can now manually alert a single team member with a tap of a button — regardless of their call status!
 
Pulsara sent users the following Video Tutorials detailing how to assign physicians and team members:
 
Stop STEMI Tutorial

 

Stop Stroke Tutorial

 
 
Pulsara lists the following as highlights specifically of interest to Hospital Users:
  • Physicians can now manage their own "On Call" status.
  • An entire team of on-call specialists can be added later in the case — with just a couple of taps. Tap Update >> Tap a checkbox >> Save. Done!
  • Force assign and alert non-physicians, like Cath Lab or IR Team members, who forgot to toggle on call.
  • Direct physician assignment has been removed from the Inbound EMS and New Patient screens.
  • All Team Assignment functionality is consolidated in a single, standardized location.
 Pulsara lists the following as highlights specifically of interest to Admin Users:
  • Configure the alerting workflow for different teams at your facility
  • Any team can receive Inbound EMS alerts
  • Additional teams can be assigned and alerted in an ad hoc fashion

"Another feature we are excited about is that physicians can now manager their own on call status," said Erich Hannan, VP of Development. "Multiple physicians can now be on call simultaneously for a given team. For example, the attending neurologist and a couple resident neurologists could be on call for stroke patients at the same time. When a stroke case is activated, all three would get assigned and receive a primary alert. Managing call status at multiple hospitals is also supported for physicians."

My Call Status Screen

In version 6.0, the Assigned Team Card allows users to update the people and teams assigned to the case with a couple of taps. All of the information about assigned clinicians, who has acknowledged, and the ability to add people to the patient’s care team is all consolidated in one, convenient location.

Assigned Team Card
 

Using the Team Alerts screen in 6.0, users can see the full details about who has received which alerts, who has acknowledged, and which teams are not yet ready for the current patient.

Pulsara also added an “Update” button to easily assign additional teams or people to the case.

Team Alerts Screen
 

"These are all updates that will make our users' lives much easier," said Brian Crumrine, Lead QA Engineer. "But, the new Assign Team Screen is the meat and potatoes of the 6.0 release,"

Some features of the Assign Team Screen include: 

  • Assign an entire team — or multiple teams — with a couple of taps.
  • Preview which people will get assigned and alerted.
  • Force assign and alert any person in the system, even if they are not on call.
  • Force assign non-physician team members, like Cath Lab or Radiology Tech.
  • Search for people or teams.

NOTES:

  • If an off call person in a team is force assigned to a patient, all of the people on call for that team are also assigned to the patient.
  • Force assigning a person for a particular patient does not change their on call status in the system. In other words, you can’t put somebody on call for all patients. You can only assign them to a specific patient.
  • The yellow muted bell next to a name means that particular person is not receiving alerts. There are multiple ways this can happen. For instance, if a user:
    • Muted alerts for this patient.
    • Turned off push notifications on their phone.
    • Got booted off of a shared device. 
Assign Team Screen
 

Pulsara announced that the Alert Physicians card has been removed from the Inbound EMS Screen for both STEMI and Stroke.

"In order to support a more flexible system, allow physicians to manage their own on call status, and allow more than one physician to be assigned to a single case, we did some spring cleaning and replaced the direct, single physician assignment paradigm with the new Assigned Team functionality," said James Woodson, Chief Executive Officer.

 
RN Activation Screen
 

In version 6.0, the Assigned Physicians Card has been removed from the Active Patient Screen for both STEMI and Stroke. In this version:

  • a summary of physician assignment and acknowledgment is displayed in the Assigned Team card.
  • full details of exactly who has been assigned, with one touch phone call capability, is available by tapping the Team Alerts button.
  • adjust who’s assigned by tapping the Update button and using the new Team Assignment screen.
 
Assigned Phys Card is Replaced
 

According to Hannan, assigned interventional specialists are included in new Assigned Team functionality.

Intervention Card Update
 

In efforts to help users ensure their teams are in the loop, the company made simple, step-by-step PDFs that walk a user through assigning physicians and other team members to a case. Formatted in standard letter size, they can easily be printed and displayed in users' departments.

STEMI 6.0 tutorial .PDF
Stroke 6.0 tutorial .PDF
 

From the dashboard, users can now list, view, and edit the teams at a hospital. They have the ability to configure when different teams get alerted in each patient’s lifecycle. For example, a user could set up the on call cardiologist to get automatically alerted when EMS creates a STEMI patient.

Pulsara encourages users to speak with their Pulsara Account Managers to help get their systems configured.

Hospital Teams Dashboard
 
Dashboard Cardiology
 

###

Release Notes
Help FAQ's
Contact Support 

Press Contact:
Kris Kaull  
406.600.0960
kris@pulsara.com

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