Pediatric Clinical Decision Support Tool
Each year, more than 4,000 pediatric deaths occur in U.S. emergency departments that could potentially be prevented with better preparedness. In many urgent care centers and emergency rooms, especially those in rural or under-resourced areas, children are treated by clinicians who have limited pediatric training.
To address this critical gap, Dr. Alana Arnold founded PEMPal with the goal of equipping non-pediatric providers with reliable, evidence-based tools. To bring this vision to life, PEMPal partnered with Kepler Team to build a digital clinical decision support (CDS) module, seamlessly embedded within the EHR through EMRAY, Kepler’s provider-facing platform.
“Kepler Team was clear on expectations, action-oriented, and brought thoughtful guidance throughout. Working with them was a seamless experience, and I’m confident their expertise will continue to deliver impactful solutions in the healthcare space.”
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PEMPal, a U.S.-based healthcare solutions provider that specializes in enhancing pediatric readiness in hospitals, emergency departments, and urgent care centers.
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PEMPal developed a proof-of-concept using the form-builder tool Outgrow.co, which was accessible through their website. In this solution, a clinician would complete an intake form about the patient’s condition and receive recommendations for interventions. This generated initial interest, and the next step was to deliver the functionality and integration required for use in real-world clinical settings. To move forward, PEMPal needed a scalable solution that could:
Deliver expert pediatric protocols at the point of care.
Integrate directly into existing EHRs.
Require minimal onboarding.
Be demo-ready for presale meetings with stakeholders at hospitals and healthcare organizations.
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Developing the PEMPal Module on EMRAY
To bring the new version of their application to life, PEMPal partnered with Kepler Team for development. Instead of building a standalone custom application, Kepler Team developed PEMPal as a module on EMRAY—an EHR-integrated provider portal that allows for rapid development and easy deployment.
EMRAY is an ideal platform for this kind of solution because it is already integrated with EHRs, is designed to support building apps as modular extensions, and requires minimal effort from hospital IT teams during implementation.
By deploying PEMPal as an EMRAY module, Kepler Team was able to deliver the solution quickly and within a startup-friendly budget.
By deploying PEMPal as an EMRAY module, Kepler Team was able to deliver the solution quickly and within a startup-friendly budget.
Key Features:
Seamless EHR Integration using the SMART on FHIR protocol. Launches directly from within Epic, Cerner, and CharmHealth EHRs, pulling patient demographic data. Support for vitals integration is planned for a future release.
Built-In Pediatric Assessments. Three assessments are currently available: Asthma, Bronchiolitis, and Neonatal Fever. They are based on guidelines from leading children’s hospitals and generate recommended treatment plans.
Azure Health Bot–Powered Intake. Intake forms leverage Azure Health Bot, providing support for complex logic and decision-making trees, as well as HIPAA compliance, NLP capabilities, and scalability. The tool was selected with future AI enhancements in mind.
Quick Documentation. Clinicians can review past assessments and use the “Copy to Clipboard” feature to paste summaries directly into the EHR, saving time and improving documentation quality.
Designed for All Clinicians. Especially valuable for nurse practitioners and physician assistants, the module supports confident decision-making in solo or high-stakes care environments. It also records clinician roles for future analytics.
What’s next: Pilot feedback will focus on usability, clinical relevance, and adoption, which are the core drivers of sustainable clinical behavior change. Insights from the pilots will shape the next iteration of the product and inform future assessments, ensuring PEMPal continues to support high-quality pediatric care wherever it is needed.
Technologies we used in this project
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Microsoft Azure: A comprehensive cloud platform for building, deploying, and managing applications with scalability, security, and global reach.
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EMRAY: A pre-integrated provider portal and SMART on FHIR application connecting EHR data to innovations