For Immediate Release July 5, 2012   Staff feeling the VIBE at HDGH Oculys technology aims to help staff improve patient flow and bed use   (Windsor, ON) - Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital has launched a strategic pilot project that uses mobile technology to help improve speed and decision making for patient flow and bed allocations.   HDGH frequently operates at very high occupancy levels and has very little readily available real-time information to assist staff with bed assignments and utilization. Bed meetings occur at least twice per day, involving about 30 unit managers, charge nurses and support staff, who over the course of a day spend a significant amount of time gathering and summarizing information for these meetings. This information is subsequently utilized to make decisions regarding patient flow and bed allocations - essentially, identifying where beds are becoming available for use by a particular patient who may be waiting to be admitted from the ER to an in-patient unit.   The hospital identified a need for a data management system that can provide leadership and management with real-time information.   Enter Oculys, an Ontario-based startup company which was created out of the IT department of St. Mary's General Hospital in Kitchener - who in spring demonstrated to HDGH the technology it already has in place at St. Mary's and Grand River Hospital.   An internal HDGH team was impressed with the technology but asked Oculys to take existing technology a step further - in addition to providing information in a mobile app on current bed status, including ALC status, extend the functionality to allow staff to access information in real time to support patient flow decisions.   As a result, last week Oculys initiated a project dubbed VIBE - which stands for Virtual Information Brings Efficiency - that will test this technology through to November 2012.   Staff members are already impressed with VIBE and its ability to save staff time and reduce the time patients may have to wait for the right bed.   "This system should free up critical human resources to focus on direct patient care, while at the same time provide the required information on a timely basis to facilitate and support bed allocation and flow decisions," said Shelley Cole, Manager, Patient Flow, at HDGH.   "Information is power," says Franck Hivert, Chief Executive Officer of Oculys. "Having information at the fingertips of front-line healthcare leaders will assist them in developing proactive, real-time decisions related to hospital operations management."   "There are many benefits associated with VIBE; namely, improved capacity management, bed utilization and flow, timely access to information, and reduced personnel time in preparing and disseminating reports," said HDGH Supervisor Ken Deane.   Hivert believes that "without the strong collaboration and innovative efforts of the Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital team, we could not have delivered this solution."   The project at HDGH is managed and supported by Consolidated Health Information Services (CHIS), the information management/information technology shared services organization owned by all hospitals in the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network.   About the Product:   VIBE is a mobile web-based decision-support tool that is accessible from any hospital blackberry or tablet, as well as hospital desktop computer. It offers 360-degree visibility - in real time - into the current status of the hospital and allows healthcare leaders to take the pulse of their hospital operations at any time and the quality of patient care.   About the Project:   The project will provide ADT (Admission, Discharge, Transfer) data, including real-time bed capacity utilization, as well as the number of patients in isolation, the number of patients identified as ALC (patients requiring Alternate Level of Care) and ER/OR volume information.   About Oculys:   VIBE is a product of Oculys, which is a Waterloo Region based software company. Oculys specializes in developing real-time, mobile decision support applications for healthcare. Its main purpose is to enhance, develop and market innovative technology solutions that empower health-care organizations to be more efficient, effective and patient focused with the express input and feedback of healthcare professionals. The link to their website is: www.oculys.com.   About HDGH:   Hôtel-Dieu Grace Hospital plays a unique role in Windsor-Essex as the regional provider of advanced care in such areas as complex trauma, renal dialysis, cardiac care, stroke and neurosurgery, acute mental health and a broad range of medical and surgical services required to support these specialized areas.   - 30 -   For more information contact Steve Erwin, Director of Communications at (519) 973-4433.