Finding the right balance between capacity and need is difficult in any healthcare setting. Hospitals and health systems continue to face challenges in terms of workforce management, patient flow, and real-time knowledge and understanding of the unique situations they face. everyday items, especially in crowded emergency departments.
PROBLEM
The University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville has been working to improve its operational efficiency for nearly a decade — since 2010 — to address bottlenecks in patient flow.
“Through years of innovation, we have come to a point where we need new technology to take us to the next level,” said Devin Fladd, director of process engineering at the University of Tennessee Medical Center. “Oracle Cerner’s capacity management tools have accelerated our efforts to address these issues by pairing enterprise dashboards with automated bed management.”
SUGGESTIONS
Oracle Cerner tools provide visibility and transparency for throughput operations.
“It has allowed us to increase productivity and collect data that we can use to continuously improve our operations,” explains Fladd. “The decision to deploy a centralized clinical operations center like the Cerner Command Center and CareAware Patient Stream has proven critical to our ability to serve communities throughout East Tennessee.
He continued: “With the competition in today’s healthcare market, we have to see how to better use technology to automate human processes, because we know there is a need for it. a very large demand for people, not a very large supply. “Oracle Cerner provided us with the best solution to address our needs, and we can build on our existing partnership to ensure we implement the best approach. “
CHALLENGE MIX ONLY
The University of Tennessee Medical Center has set a December 2020 operating date, which begins around the time it was impacted by the COVID-19 surge.
“CareAware CareView and Patient Stream allow us to use and view COVID-19 properties,” notes Fladd. “Doctors on the floor can see their CareView boards and know which patients are positive and which are pending; radiology, environmental services, patient transport and other team members know the status patient’s condition at this time.
“Prior to implementation, transport and EVS were dispatched from manual lists,” he continued. “A phone call has been requested to request transportation. Normally, the line is busy. We won’t be able to keep it that way.”
The Cerner Command Center provided the provider organization with new capabilities to manage ED crowding, patient flow issues, and staffing to help ease the pressure on team members. clinical and nonclinical and ensure timely access to patient care.
RESULT
After redesigning and automating patient throughput processes in Capacity Management, the provider organization reduced the number of full-time equivalent hours, or FTEs, daily at the after-sales center by 51% every day. need. This includes a reduction from 116 hours to 56 hours per day.
“We have automated our entire room moving process,” Fladd reports. “Previously, we would have to wait for the nurse to discharge the patient to trigger the housekeeping. For many years it was a manual process. The algorithm coordinates closely and according to the rules of Competency. helps the logistics center maneuver team members – transportation and EVS – efficiently and effectively based on the priority needs of the health system.
“We’re growing,” he added. “Now that we’ve taken the technology and built systems around it, it’s become part of our culture and the expectation of senior leadership. By using the same system. system for capacity management, we have standardized the data structure, helping us to use the data to guide us to future needs.”
Employees have moved from the habit of looking at what happened yesterday to expecting what will happen next. This technology has helped them be more proactive in managing their beds than before.
TIPS FOR OTHER PEOPLE
“Health care organizations know the importance of providing timely patient care,” says Fladd. “The ability to do so relies heavily on a secure and timely flow of information and being able to optimize that to make the right decisions at the right time.
“Having access to a real-time health system is not only essential to managing the most up-to-date patient data; it also supports employee workflow and challenges,” he concludes. conclusion. “Healthcare is an innovative and best-practice industry. When serving our community, we must always consider what we’re doing and how we can make it better. Technology is only as good as the processes that support it.”
