Information technology produces vast amounts of data; however, in order to be truly useful, systems need to be integrated and data requires proper patient context. For example, vital sign measurements alone are not actionable without knowing patient demographics, history, and current observations. Vital signs can also contribute to the calculation of an early warning score to detect early identification of a patient’s decline. This information can be sent to a handheld nursing device as an alert or to a unit view in the EMR. In this example, multiple technologies - an electronic medical record, a medical device, a clinical calculator, and a nurse call system - are all integrated to provide actionable information to busy clinicians.
