STAT: Mobile app helps clinicians manage inpatient emergencies

Abstract

In response to the unprecedented surge of patients with COVID-19, Massachusetts General Hospital created both repurposed and de-novo COVID-19 inpatient general medicine and intensive care units. The clinicians staffing these new services included those who typically worked in these care settings (e.g., medicine residents, hospitalists, intensivists), as well as others who typically practice in other care environments (e.g., re-deployed outpatient internists, medical subspecialists, and other physician specialties). These surge clinicians did not have extensive experience managing low frequency, high acuity emergencies, such as those that might result from COVID-19. Physician-innovators, in collaboration with key hospital stakeholders, developed a comprehensive strategy to design, develop, and distribute a digital health solution to address this problem. MGH STAT is an intuitive mobile application that empowers clinicians to respond to medical emergencies by providing them with access to up-to-date clinical algorithms, workflows, and code-running features at the point-of-care. It’s value as a digital lifesaving tool applies to normal day-to-day operations, training purposes, and disaster scenarios that create large-scale operational, personnel, and patient care-related challenges for healthcare systems, such as mass casualty events, natural disasters, and future pandemics.