Nxt Inc

Programs: Nxt's first project focuses on improving the overall performance of a new hospital patient room design as measured through workplace effectiveness, safety, satisfaction, and usability for all end users. The hospital of the future program is a platform for developing new ideas and products in healthcare where innovation is tested to its fullest degree. It is the convergence of experts within different fields from universities, industry, and healthcare institutions. The program was established and funded by the department of defense in june 2007 to serve as a national test bed to demonstrate and evaluate innovative technologies to develop the next standard in hospital care. A major priority within this venture was to establish interoperability regarding electronic health records between the department of defense and civilian agencies, including civilian hospital and first responders. Working with several technology partners, the research team demonstrated that information can be passed securely between military and civilian healthcare providers. Another major priority within this proposal was to design, construct, and evaluate a patient room of the future prototype. This was a collaborative service-learning reserach project between spartanburg regional healthcare system and an interdisciplinary team of faculty and students from clemson university and carleton university. The project expanded on work conducted at clemson university that involved the design and full-scale mock-up of a patient room prototype. This mock-up patient room of the future was also evaluated under simulated use conditions and modified to create an alpha version of the room that was constructed in the nxt/clemson research lab on the campus of village at pelham hospital in greer, south carolina. Further operational research and testing was conducted on the alpha version by faculty, students, and staff at both clemson university and the research lab.