The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia will begin using software from PeraHealth to improve clinician awareness of children who may be at risk for clinical deterioration while in the hospital.

CHOP will use PeraHealth's full suite of real-time clinical surveillance software – including the pediatric Rothman Index, or pRI, at CHOP's main campus inpatient location where the software will be integrated into its EHR.

PeraHealth and CHOP will also collaborate on research intended to improve the delivery of pediatric care.

"CHOP is committed to providing children and their families with safe, effective, family-centered, timely and efficient care," Evan Fieldston, MD, attending physician of general pediatrics and medical director of clinical operations at CHOP, said in a news release. "We believe PeraHealth software will help our clinicians to better identify children at risk for worsening conditions so they can intervene in a timely and appropriate manner."

A disease-agnostic universal score for predicting pediatric patient mortality risk, the pRI is calculated in real time using data from any major EHR system. The score is then presented in color-coded graphs that trend patient condition over time and across any care setting, alerting clinicians earlier to subtle but potentially serious health problems.

[See also: Hospital slashes false-positive diagnoses with CDS platform.]

Recent peer-reviewed research found the pRI helps identify and alert clinicians to patients needing urgent intervention. This sensitivity to identify patients in need of attention is paired with a low false-positive rate. According to the research, the pRI had a false-positive rate of just 1 percent, compared to 46 percent for simply monitoring vital signs, a common indicator of patient condition.

"Since many symptoms of potentially life-threatening pediatric conditions are also found with common, non-critical illnesses, it's often a challenge for providers to recognize when immediate medical attention is needed," added PeraHealth CEO Stephanie Alexander. "By trending and clearly presenting disparate data from any care setting or patient population, PeraHealth solutions offer clinicians a full picture of a child's condition, both in the moment and trended over time. We look forward to assisting CHOP in its never-ending quest to provide safer, more integrated care."

Nationally, clinicians use PeraHealth solutions to:

• Remotely monitor patients across multiple care settings and enhance preemptive rapid response team intervention;
• Help determine when to discharge patients;
• Prioritize patient bedside visits and nursing
• Improve accuracy and timeliness of documentation; andOptimize ICU bed use.