EHR HVAC Exposure Notification System
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems face challenges in automatically notifying individuals potentially exposed to infectious diseases, particularly failing to account for former patients who have been discharged from the facility and relying on manual input, with limited consideration of healthcare facility layouts and HVAC systems in determining exposure risks.
Innovation Solution
A distributed EHR system that includes server-side and client-side functionality, which automatically identifies and notifies individuals who may have been exposed to an infectious disease by tracking patient and healthcare worker locations, utilizing HVAC system data to predict exposure risks and generate heat maps, and sending notifications to computing devices, including those of former patients.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If manual input is used to ascertain identities of exposed persons, then the system can identify exposed individuals, but the process requires significant manual effort and time
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-establishes the healthcare facility layout database with room connections and HVAC system configurations before incidents occur. When a patient is diagnosed with an infectious disease, the notification system can immediately query this pre-prepared data to identify exposed persons without requiring manual facility layout analysis or HVAC system tracing, thus resolving the contradiction between accurate identification and time consumption
Solution Approach 2:
The notification system automatically queries the facility layout database and HVAC system data to identify exposed persons and generate notifications without requiring manual input from healthcare workers. The system self-ascertains identities of exposed individuals by cross-referencing patient location data with facility layout and HVAC connectivity information, eliminating manual effort while maintaining accuracy
2Adaptability or versatility
If conventional EHR only considers room layouts for exposure determination, then the system is simple to implement, but it fails to account for HVAC-mediated disease spread to discharged patients
Solution Approach 1:
The facility layout database serves multiple functions: it stores room layout information for spatial analysis, HVAC system connectivity data for air flow tracing, and serves as the foundation for identifying both currently present and previously present persons in the facility. This multi-functional database design enables comprehensive exposure tracking including discharged patients without proportionally increasing system complexity
Solution Approach 2:
The facility layout database acts as an intermediary between the EHR system and HVAC system data. It integrates spatial information with HVAC connectivity information, enabling the notification system to trace disease spread pathways without requiring direct complex interactions between multiple subsystems. This intermediary database simplifies the overall system architecture while enabling comprehensive exposure analysis
3Speed
If automatic notification systems are configured in conventional EHR, then notification speed improves, but they fail to notify discharged patients who may have been exposed
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-records the presence and discharge times of all persons in the facility in the facility layout database before notifications are needed. When a patient is diagnosed with an infectious disease, the system can immediately query this pre-recorded data to identify all persons who were present during the relevant time period, including discharged patients, and notify them without delay. This eliminates both the speed problem and the information completeness problem simultaneously
Data Source
AI summary
An electronic health records application (EHR) receives an indication that a patient in a healthcare facility has been diagnosed with an infectious disease at a datetime. The EHR determines first locations in the healthcare facility in which the patient has been present. The EHR identifies portions of a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system (HVAC) system of the healthcare facility based upon the first locations. The portions of the HVAC system connect the first locations to second locations in the healthcare facility. The EHR identifies a person that has been present in at least one of the first locations or the second locations. The EHR then causes a notification to be transmitted to a computing device operated by the person notifying the person of potential exposure to the infectious disease.