Automating Patient Flow Provides Big ROI
Study shows Midwest hospital reaps big returns with technology and process redesign.
Pittsburgh, PA (PRWEB) February 12, 2006
A study of how one Midwestern hospital solved its patient flow and overcrowding problem suggests that hospitals can simultaneously improve patient throughput and safety while saving millions of dollars annually.
By automating the fragmented processes of patient throughput, OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois, realized savings that ranged from more than $300,000 the first year to a projection of more than $1.3 million in the third year. OSF believes it can save an additional $1 million using automation features to project shift-by-shift census by unit in order to allocate nursing staff in the most efficient manner, according to comments made by Hoa Cooper, RN, MSN, a member of the Six Sigma task force assigned to improve patient flow.
The current overcrowding crisis in America’s hospitals puts patients’ lives at risk, prompting the Joint Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) to issue new standards which hold hospital administrators accountable for fixing the problem. Overcrowding is the result of several issues, including over two decades of facility closings and consolidations, the aging of the largest generation in U. S. history and an outdated process for moving patients through hospitals. Available beds often sit idle for 10 hours or more because of fragmented communications and decentralized ownership of the patient flow process. As a result, patients must wait hours in the emergency department, are “boarded” in less appropriate units or parked in hallways until beds are available.
The study was done by Atlanta-based Maestro Strategies, LLC, to analyze the medical center’s return on investment after OSF St. Francis installed a suite of capacity management solutions from TeleTracking Technologies, Inc. TeleTracking’s patient flow solutions address throughput issues starting before a patient is even discharged. Noting a pending or confirmed discharge of a patient on a color-coded electronic bed board lets placement personnel begin the planning of re-occupying that bed before it is even vacated. The discharge of a patient through the dispatcher-less transport management solution prompts housekeeping to immediately prepare the vacant bed for a new patient. Now the average turnover time at the 710-bed hospital is only 55 minutes. The entire process is monitored in real-time on strategically located flat screen video displays, so staff in emergency, intensive care and other units are constantly updated on bed availability. At any point in the day, Patient Logistics Coordinators know the exact status of each hospital bed and can anticipate when beds will become available.
Placing patients on the correct units and in the right type of bed is an important factor in the quality of care provided. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has studied this issue extensively and has concluded that improper placement of patients has been shown to have a significant impact on mortality of hospital patients. Mortality rates for intensive care units at OSF St. Francis dropped three percent the first seven months after TeleTracking implementation (from 8.84% to 5.84%) from the same period the previous year.
OSF Saint Francis Medical Center is the flagship of the Order of Saint Francis (OSF) HealthCare System, an integrated healthcare delivery system with six acute care hospitals located in Illinois and Michigan. It’s also a tertiary referral center and teaching hospital affiliated with the University Of Illinois College Of Medicine and includes the Children’s Hospital of Illinois.
OSF Saint Francis Medical Center is a designated Level-1 trauma center with over 62,000 emergency visits per year. Like many other hospitals, patient backlogs due to inpatient bed availability forced medical staff to divert emergency patients to other emergency rooms. By installing TeleTracking Technologies’ Capacity Management Solutions™ suite and redesigning the patient logistics process redesign, diversions were reduced dramatically, giving more patients access to the highly skilled expertise of a Level-1 trauma center. The resulting admissions added over $287,000 in contribution margin (net revenues less direct expenses) in the first year.
About Maestro Strategies:
Maestro Strategies is a nationally recognized healthcare management consulting firm specializing in technology driven change. The Maestro team helps clients focus on strategic business and clinical drivers, create a vision for the future, develop frameworks for performance driven IT and design plans to realize the value of investments in technology. For more information, please visit www. maestrostrategies. com.
About TeleTracking Technologies:
TeleTracking Technologies, a Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania-based provider of patient flow solutions for the healthcare industry, has implemented over 1,100 solutions at more than 645 acute care hospitals in the U. S. and Canada.
All TeleTracking solutions will be exhibited at HIMSS 2006 in San Diego, CA – Booth # 1609. For more information, please visit www. teletracking. com.
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