The Hospital I go to when my asthma gets really bad, recently upgraded their electronic charting and patient care computer systems. They’re using the EPIC system, which includes a patient portal via the web. It’s pretty cool because things like labs and xray results are made available to patient almost as soon as they’re available to the doctors.
During my hospitalization last week, I was able to view my ABGs and other lab results right from my android pad from my bed in ICU. By seeing the results almost immediately, I could have easily tweaked the bipap settings to adjust any of my out of wack blood gases parameters (which I did). Mind you, I would never change any critical ventilator settings without running it by the Respiratory Therapist or the docs first, but being an RT myself I like the fact that I have near instant access to my lab results and can make suggestions if I feel they would be helpful in improving my respiratory status and possibly preventing intubation.
(Sorry for the shaky video. I was having a hard time keeping the pad in the frame, because of all the wires and tubes I was attached to, but you get the idea)
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