As healthcare devolves into a numbers game, let's remember who's #1.
I've been interviewing hospital lab folks over the past several weeks, inviting their appraisals of today's arterial blood-gas analyzers – machines used in ORs, ERs, CVORs and critical care units. These analyzers have become smarter and smarter, not only in terms of their accuracy in reporting results, but in how they detect and correct their own imperfections – some even document their corrective actions, making it easier for the hospital to stay in compliance with regulations governing this branch of patient testing. As one interviewee said, "If it ain't documented, it ain't done."
