The Barossa Hills Fleurieu Local Health Network has moved from a paper-based admission process for surgical patients to using digital pathways to enhance communication, assess patient risk, and prepare for surgery.
The regional health network provides acute public care, aged care, community health and mental health services through 11 hospitals and medical facilities across the Barossa, Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island in South Australia.
WHAT IT’S ABOUT
BHFLHN recently rolled out Personify Care digital roadmaps, which have been customized for each network location. All of its locations have different routes and are tailored based on their needs.
A digital roadmap that streamlines and personalizes the communication of timely and relevant patient information, including appointment times and reminders, patient education, COVID-19 testing and screening guidelines- 19, surgery date and time confirmation, advanced discharge plan, and feedback form.
It also allows care teams to easily identify any patient concerns, surface culture needs, and detect clinical risks early.
So far, patients have given “very positive” feedback about using the digital pathway. They also found it “helpful” with their hospitalization.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
With the implementation of Personalized Care pathways, “the entire surgical journey has been positively impacted with improved care efficiency and efficiency, reduced staff workload, increased capacity providing timely access to patient information and optimizing the use of the operating room,” said Kasey Irwin, manager of the Department of Elective Surgery.
For example, the total time it takes to prepare a patient for admission has been reduced from one hour to 12 minutes per patient. This includes the average time it takes to chase patients to fill out forms, clinical evaluation of paper forms, categorization of appropriate appointment dates and times, and contacting the patient about the time of admission. .
“Patient admission to surgery has improved,” also noted Patient Admissions Administrator Jye Cameron.
When it comes to post-operative care, the time it takes to call patients has dropped dramatically, 68% of which don’t even require follow-up calls. In the past, each patient spent about 20 minutes on the phone – and that’s not counting efforts to contact them. Given the number of surgical patients at BHFLHN, this improvement equates to 40 hours per week of staff time reallocated to nursing care.
“Our concerted approach to surgical preparation provides critical time for frontline staff to explore new ways to improve patient experience and share knowledge to improve patient outcomes,” says Irwin. develop new ways of working”.
Meanwhile, the network can bridge the geographical and processing gap between medical staff and hospital by combining Electronic Request for Surgical Admission from General Practitioner and other information and tasks. other important for the patient through the digital route.
TREND TO BIGGER
Using Personify Care’s digital roadmap, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, also in South Australia, was able to reduce the time on the waiting list for their endoscopy patients by 71%.
Its digital avenue has also provided prenatal care at LHN North Adelaide LHN’s pre-rehabilitation program LHN and LHN Central Adelaide, helping to keep patients healthy for surgery.
Last year, Personify Care also provided a digital platform at St John of God Murdoch Hospital in Perth, which has authorized home care after surgery for patients. In May of this year, the service was expanded to the hospital’s specialty surgical departments following its success in general surgery departments.
