William Newton Hospital is a 25-bed critical access hospital in Kansas serving patients in Winfield, Cowley County, and surrounding areas. The nonprofit community general hospital is locally managed and financially self-sufficient, relying entirely on patient revenue and philanthropic support. It is not supported by local taxes and is not supported by an outside health system.
PROBLEM
Things are quite busy for the hospital, especially in 2020. This is not the typical critical outreach hospital. It has its own cardiologist and cath lab, an audiology clinic, a pediatric and pediatric clinic, internal medicine providers, and seven family care clinics.
It also has a working relationship with orthopedic surgeons who come and perform surgeries. Furthermore, the hospital receives about 300 babies every year.
SUGGESTIONS
William Newton Hospital introduced patient transfer technology provider Motient in January 2021 amid the pandemic. Before Motient, it would take an RN off the front line of patient care to call to find hospitals with available beds. The goal is to find a facility that can have a bed, and then find a doctor to pick up.
“There was a time when we spent a total of 48 hours doing this, literally pulling nurse managers on the phone to find a reception facility – it was real,” says Debbie Marrs, chief nursing officer. terrible”. “Our team will start with the potential receiving facilities closest to WNH and work their way up.
“We can now quickly coordinate transfers and transports over longer distances, giving patients more and better options for care.”
Debbie Marrs, William Newton Hospital
“The long delays our patients face in much-needed care that we are unable to provide,” she continued. “This hurts our patients and our community, in the countryside, our patients want to stay home here. This time consuming process has a negative impact on patient care and contributes to part of the stress for our employees, which is already huge.”
The implementation of patient transfer technology has freed nurses from the trouble of making these calls and allowed them to return to their patients. All nurses want to do is give the best care to their patients; This has helped alleviate some of the stress nurses are feeling, Marrs said.
“Motient has shown us how implementing Mission Control will expand WNH’s reach for patient transport, accelerate patient transfers, and improve inpatient care,” she said. “As soon as our team receives the patient’s report from the emergency medical services agency, we will assess the patient’s condition in Mission Control.
“The provider team will then handle the search for an appropriate bed location and coordinate with hospital administrators to authorize and confirm transfer and transportation,” she continued. “If the WNH team requires additional expertise while a patient is awaiting transfer, the provider can quickly connect them with cardiology, neurology, vascular and other specialists for medical advice from away immediately.”
If the transportation distance is greater than 90 miles and the local EMS agency is unable to take the patient away because the trip will leave the community without ambulance care, Motient will work with a variety of ambulance services and companies fly to determine the fastest, safest method of transporting patients, whether it’s a ground plane, a helicopter, or a fixed-wing aircraft.
CHALLENGE MIX ONLY
“Many people on our staff use this technology, this list includes my nurse managers, my home supervisors, and some ER staff,” explains Marrs. Marrs explained. “The process will begin with staff filling out an online form describing what type of bed we need for what type of patient.
“We’ve installed a desktop shortcut in the ER so that staff in that unit can initiate the process if the home supervisor is tied up elsewhere,” she added. “It’s very user-friendly.”
Employees make sure to set up a supplier base to start from the desired geographic area and then expand from that region. That way, the employee doesn’t repeat himself, which is important if one is making phone calls to another employee and trying to track down what facilities have been called.
If employees can’t find a bed, they can check with facilities closer than six or eight hours later to see if things have changed.
“Besides supporting bed positions, the best thing about this technology is backstage support,” says Marrs. “The Motient account manager will check in periodically to see if we have any issues that need to be addressed. That’s great. Most of the time there’s no problem.”
RESULT
Marrs reports that doing Mission Control is like engaging another team member.
“The system does all the administrative tasks related to patient transfers that our doctors and RNs have done in the past,” she said. “We can now quickly coordinate transfers and transport over longer distances, giving patients more and better care options.
“We also find responsive questions helpful,” she continues. “There was a time when we wanted to provide more information; in those cases, the clinical staff would simply go into the chat box and add that information there.”
William Newton Hospital has had 248 missions since Motient was put into service in November 2020. Staff initially used the service’s phone calls before it officially entered the portal. in January 2021.
Data shows that the top uses for hospitals are patient transfers related to:
-
Respiratory
-
Hemodialysis
-
GI and septic
“Average visual acuity is around 11, typically in ALS and critical care patients,” says Marrs. “We had a six-bed ICU. At one point, we had 18 dialysis patients during a heightened COVID period. It was tough. We had a dialysis center in the northeast corner of campus. , but they will not accept dialysis patients if they already have COVID.
“Now, we’re trying to establish an agreement with them so we can take better care of our patients,” she added.
TIPS FOR OTHER PEOPLE
Marrs notes: “I always talk about this technology and the problems it solves. “When you get a phone call asking if we have a bed available and you can tell it’s a small facility, we’ll ask if they know about the technology and share it with them.
“We lived by calling ourselves and knowing what it was like,” she concluded. “When there’s help out there, why not use it? I’ll tell them don’t hesitate.”
Twitter: @SiwickiHealthIT
Email the writer: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.
