Technology to Give Patients the Best Care

Discover how the latest technology improves care and allows nurses more time at the bedside with patients

High Tech Meets High Touch

An electronic medical records system gives critical care nurses like John Collins, R.N., real-time information bout patients. Here, he monitors intensive care patients from a high-tech, off-site control room - ensuring the highest level of care 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

You may have heard the terms, “high tech” and “high touch.” We believe they go hand-in-hand when it comes to giving patients the best care. At Lehigh Valley Hospital and Health Network, you will use the most advanced technology so that you can spend more time giving your patients the bedside care they deserve. In fact, each year we invest more than $10 million in new technology and innovation . Learn how this technology can help you spend more time with patients and ensure your patients are safe.

Electronic Medical Records

Our electronic medical records system allows nurses to spend more time with patients and less time writing in charts. Known as our “electronic bedside charting system,” it automatically records patients’ vital signs in real time and alerts you when something rises or falls. It’s working so well that our nurses have an additional hour (per 12-hour shift) to spend with patients at the bedside. The system also includes patients’ diagnostic test results, lab work and medications.

Around-the-Clock Care for Critical Care Patients

Critical care nurses are helping to monitor patients around-the-clock with “tele-health” technology. From a high-tech, off-site control room critical care nurses and intensivists monitor patients at different hospitals and intensive care units through out the night, assuring the highest level of care 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They use high-resolution audio-visual systems that allow clinicians to see the patient and talk with other doctors, nurses and family members in the patients’ room. They also use the electronic medical records system, which captures and transmits patient’s vital signs in real time to the off-site control room. Clinicians are alerted to serious changes in a patient’s condition so they can act immediately to address the problem. The electronic charting system also eliminates much of the bedside paperwork, allowing nurses to spend more time with patients.

This technology provides an added and higher level of care to help detect problems earlier and provide treatment faster. In turn, it reduces complications, shortens hospital stays and saves lives.

Medication Bar Coding

Our medication bar coding system ensures patients get the right dose of the right medication at the right time. You just scan the patient’s medication and identification bracelet. The data is transferred to our pharmacy, as well as our electronic medical records system.

Computerized Physician Ordering

To reduce time and handwriting errors, physicians electronically enter all patient orders, including prescriptions and diagnostic tests, right at the bedside into a handheld computer. This helps nurses fulfill patients’ orders more quickly and more accurately.

Electronic Paper in the Emergency Department

An electronic documentation system in the emergency department allows nurses to input patient information into a computer, eliminating handwriting errors and creating more accurate, detailed records. When a patient is discharged from the emergency department, he receives a printout of his prescriptions, discharge and medication instructions. If he’s admitted, nurses send the patient information to the unit in which he is being admitted.

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