FEATURE STORY
BSWH Uses Big Data
to Help Patients
Get Back to Life
As the sun rose one Friday morning this spring, 65-
year-old David Blevins was getting dressed and
looking forward to a day of crappie fishing with his
brother. Unfortunately, his heart had other plans.
infrastructure that helps our leaders
collate large amounts of data efficiently
and target improvement efforts. The
vision is to empower a sophisticated way to
look for correlations to improve outcomes
and reduce unnecessary cost. The project
was successfully led by Nancy Vish, RN,
PhD, vice president of Baylor Scott & White
Heart and Vascular — Dallas, and Kevin
Wheelan, MD, chief medical officer
at Baylor Scott & White Heart and Vascular
— Dallas. The cardiovascular data
warehouse initiative (IDW) has been
praised as a model for other service lines
to follow in the BSWH system.
“We’re working with our physician
leaders to identify key metrics, in one
or two pages, which can be used as
e felt sharp pains in his chest was discharged on Tuesday and back actionable results to improve patient
and back, got sick to his singing at the Scurry Church of Christ care,” Ellie said.
stomach and broke out in service on Wednesday.
a cold sweat. He woke up his wife and
As one of the busiest healthcare
An example of one key metric in
the IDW is the Door to Balloon (DTB)
told her to call 911. David knew better systems in Texas, Baylor Scott & White time, or how fast a hospital gets the
than to ignore these symptoms. Health cares for hundreds of heart attack heart blockage removed to restore blood
patients like David every year. The emer- flow. Because of the intense focus on
Scurry, Kaufman County, and quickly gency cardiac team at each BSWH facility reduction of DTB time and other clinical
determined that he was having a heart is on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. quality measures, Baylor Scott & White
attack. They activated a helicopter to get To support quality outcomes for Heart and Vascular — Dallas was ready
him to an emergency heart center as fast patients at BSWH facilities, clinicians rely as possible. During his flight to Baylor Scott on meaningful data. Events like David’s & White Heart and Vascular Hospital — healthcare journey are routinely recorded For more information about Baylor Scott
Dallas, paramedics had to shock his heart and entered into the electronic procedure & White’s heart and vascular initiatives,
twice to stabilize his heart rhythm. record. Data points from health events like contact Melissa Dalton at 214.820.2705 or
Once the team landed, David David’s are entered into national registries [email protected].
Paramedics arrived at his home in
was rushed straight into the cardiac where clinicians can benchmark collated
catheterization lab, where an interventional data to national registry performance.
cardiologist, a team of nurses and other
“These registries provide compre
clinical caregivers were waiting for him. hensive and detailed reports, but can
“I had one guy working on each arm. be cumbersome to sift through and
Both got an IV in really fast,” David said. interpret,” said Eleanor “Ellie” Huff, RN,
“They were very efficient.” MSN, director of cardiovascular services
for David, and for that he’s grateful.
How big
is big data?
for BSWH. “Our teams need accurate, Data is often measured in terabytes
from the defibrillator while in the cath lab. timely data to maintain a continuous (TB). One TB is equivalent to about
The cardiologist placed two stents process improvement program.” 1.6 million books. How much data
David required four more shocks
into the main artery supplying blood to
David’s heart, and saved his life. David
Baylor Scott & White Dallas Foundation
provided a $1 million gift to create an IT
The BSWH Perfusion Team airlifted David to Baylor Scott & White Heart and Vascular Hospital, twice having to
shock his heart to stabilize his heart rhythm.
does the healthcare industry amass
compared to others? Here’s a look:
The average hospital generates
665 TBs of data a year
A Boeing 787 aircraft generates
about 40 TBs of data per hour
of flight
Mining operations can generate
up to 2.4 TBs of data per minute
Facebook collects 500 TBs of
data daily
Sources: Adeptia, Cisco and John Quackenbush, a
professor of Biostatistics and Computational
Biology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and
Harvard School of Public Health
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THE COMPASS / BAYLOR SCOTT & WHITE FOUNDATION NEWS / WINTER 2018