We want it, and we want it now. As Americans, technological advances have made us a pretty impatient group as a whole – constantly seeking better, faster processes to improve wait time. These processes are most likely used to improve daily functions like: email, text message, video and music streaming. If these activities were ever delayed, we would become easily frustrated looking for a more advanced system of technology to replace the old one. Based off this approach, why should waiting for a doctor or care physician be any different? Even though waiting may simply be unavoidable, improved systems should be set in place to decrease doctor patient miscommunication and wait time therefore leading to increased patient satisfaction.

The wait times in a patient’s journey through the hospital can be messy. Despite many hospitals’ best efforts, the amount of time spent waiting can be overwhelming. A study conducted by a research team of The Advisory Board Company found that patients go through an average of 24 hand-offs during an inpatient stay. When it comes to patient satisfaction, retention and malpractice, these consistent hand-offs are part of an inefficient, outdated system that needs to be altered. Luckily, there are now alternative technological initiatives available to help care physician’s leverage beneficial practice workflows to minimize patient wait time.

The first example is Real-time locating systems (RTLS) which are communication systems that automatically track the location of patients, physicians, and staff as they move about the clinic. The collected data can then be utilized to identify certain trouble areas, or bottlenecks, to help ensure correct, precise adjustments to staff workflow. Furthermore, the Health information Exchange (HIE) can also capture critical data of a patient before they arrive for their visit. This exchange captures useful data for physicians to have a clear, composed record of their patient, in turn minimizing duplicate testing.

Healthcare consumers have high expectations when it comes to their physician and hospital staff. For the amount of time and money spent, it is understandable that patients would want quality service in a timely manner. The presence of these new and innovative systems, including technological healthcare exchanges and workflow communication systems, will help meet these expectations – making this an exciting time for healthcare.

In 2011, the American Board of Medical Specialties voted to make Clinical Informatics the newest subspecialty in Medicine. Clinical Informatics-trained experts were deemed crucial to maintain and improve the nation’s health information infrastructure.

Clinical informaticists focus on systems-level improvements in care delivery through the use of data analytics, clinical decision support, data visualization, and the like. Their work assists patients and payers through reduction of errors, increased safety, reduced costs, more efficient care and improved care coordination. Essentially the work of the clinical informaticist is at a practice or population level, impacting the care of multiple patients through their efforts. Recognizing that health care technology mainly benefits patients and payers led to the HITECH Act, which incentivized the implementation of clinical information technology like electronic health records and health information exchange for hospitals and providers.

Clinical informatics is the study of information technology and how it can be applied to the healthcare field. It includes the study and practice of an information-based approach to healthcare delivery in which data must be structured in a certain way to be effectively retrieved and used in a report or evaluation. Clinical informatics can be applied in a range of healthcare settings including hospital, physician’s practice, military and others.

Providers in today’s healthcare industry increasingly rely on data and technology to provide treatments for patients. They collect and share data to formulate and implement a treatment plan for a patient. Along the way, they use the latest in technological equipment, computers, software, tablets, smartphones and even apps to gather and distribute information. All of this information must be collected, stored, interpreted, analyzed and implemented into a treatment plan.

There’s no shortage of new technologies designed to assist patients and providers. We are the trusted source for a number of the technology solutions to meet the needs of healthcare providers across the country.

What is a Mass Notification System (MNS)

A mass notification system is an essential tool used to quickly and efficiently deliver emergency notifications to a large subset of people. They are becoming increasingly important systems for school, hospital, and multi-site business campus facility managers to warn individuals about threats inside and outside of the building, and provide a succinct safety protocol that immediately puts them out of harm’s way.

How Does It Work?

There are several different ways a facility can integrate a mass notification system, and it is important to note that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. A thorough risk analysis of the building infrastructure, how it is used, and the people that use it is mandatory so that the right message is delivered to the right people at the right time.

When an emergency situation is threatening the facility, a mass notification system will aggressively reach those in danger through two major tiers of communication, depending on the needs of the facility. The first tier includes physical infrastructure alerts including sirens, loudspeakers, intercoms, radio and TV announcements, emergency lights, or electronic displays. The second tier runs parallel with the first tier and delivers notifications directly to personal devices like cell phones, email, pagers, or social media. Through pre-established distribution lists, this alert system can target different subsets of people and tailor the emergency messages depending on the threat, location, time of day, or any other variable that could effect both the audience and the proper safety protocol.

Integrate a MNS in Your Facility

Every system should begin with an emergency plan. Run a thorough security audit of your entire facility and identify all potential risks. It is important to understand that not all risks are incidences of unauthorized access or violent intruders. Be sure to address emergency weather conditions, structure fires, or carbon monoxide levels as all of these dangers require the same swift communication to keep everyone safe.

When running through your security evaluation, take time to identify all of the key players when responding emergency situations. Who is the first contact? Who is responsible for what areas of the facility? The more more you can fine point the chain of command, the more efficient your facility’s response to crisis situations will be.

It is important to make sure the system that is used is also integrated to alert the appropriate emergency first responders in your area. Be sure to work closely with your local police and fire departments to ensure the system is working correctly and that the entire network is receiving the alerts promptly.

As with all new security solutions, the technology is only as effective as the individuals operating the system. That is why detailed and frequent training with mass notification systems is crucial for highly-effective crisis management. Top-down training will make sure managers and operators know their responsibilities and can communicate the responsibility of the everyday users of the system including how to use the equipment and technology, proper safety precautions, and emergency procedures so that there is a unified system across all personnel.

Part of training includes regular testing of the notifications to make sure that the system is working to capacity. This will also give users the opportunity to be comfortable with the technology, and to remind them to frequently check the system and familiarize themselves with all of its working components.

Adopting New Technology

Most facilities already have some sort of call system in place like PA systems, intercoms, loudspeakers, or electronic signage. When evaluating your building’s emergency preparedness, consider the systems you already have installed and find solutions that build on the existing infrastructure. There may be opportunities to integrate a notification system that runs parallel to the tier 1 communication solutions like text messages, computer alerts, email blasts, or even social media notifications that can efficiently target messages to directly to your audience.

There is no shortage of new security solutions for managers – so if you have any questions about how a Mass Notification System can work for your facility, reach out to one of our SD6 Alliance members and they will work with you directly to provide the right solution for you.

Every hospital’s top priority is patient satisfaction, and the leaps in healthcare technology is helping improve the way patients and caregivers interact. Advancements in integrated solutions are bridging the gap between patient and physician which is boosting productivity, increasing efficiency, and improving HCAHPS scores across the board. As nurse managers and hospital executives know, HCAHPS are crucially important to maintaining a successful operation. From a competitive position, HCAHPS and patient satisfaction help secure new patients and attract quality physicians. But HCAHPS also help protect a hospital’s liability and secure future reimbursements for care. In fact, HCAHPS and patient perception account for 30 percent of a hospital’s annual update. So how can a hospital leverage technology to help improve the patient experience?

Patient Admittance

Workflow technology is improving the efficiency and timeliness of the patient admittance process. There is a lot of communication breakdown in the traditional workflow of admitting a patient in the admission, discharge, and transfer (ADT) system to when the attending physician actually reviews the case. In between, patients spend a long time in the waiting room causing stress and uneasiness. Advances in smartphone technology can help automate this process through electronic notifications directly to physician’s personal electronic device. The ADT system can alert physician and attending staff about the recent admits and streamline the process of acquiring patient information and assessing the case – drastically cutting patient wait time.

Deliver Test Results

Test results are often a cause for great stress and anxiety for patients. Unfortunately, through traditional systems there is a lot that can delay the process of quickly delivering this patient information including communication failures over the phone or email, and manual data entry and information tracking. Hospitals are adopting new methods that allow mobile transfer of important lab results that increase patient safety and satisfaction. By automating the transfer of test results from labs directly to the physicians, hospitals and healthcare facilities and improving productivity and shaving the high costs of ineffective communication.

Nurse Calls

The speed at which patients receive immediate nurse attention for medication, treatment, or discomfort is directly correlated with their satisfaction of their care. There are areas of inefficient communication breaks when a patient requires immediate nurse action, including identifying the patient and their location, determining the need and course of action, and locating the appropriate nurse or physician. New nurse call technology is eliminating the incongruences in patient requests and streamlining essential information about the patients and their immediate needs, which is helping hospitals everywhere reduce redundant efforts and speeding up response times.

There is an appropriate communication solution for your staff and facility that will help improve your patient care and improve your HCAHPS scores. Whether it’s patient identity technology, dynamic rounding dashboards, real-time location systems, nurse call systems, or streamlined information sharing, there is a system available that tailors to your unique needs.

REAL-TIME LOCATION SYSTEMS (RTLS)

The use of real-time location systems, or RTLS, in healthcare is on the rise. But there is still a lot of misconception about what the technology does, and how it can help healthcare professionals improve their patient care. We will help shed some light on some of the great benefits of RTLS so your facility can make the best use of these systems.

What is RTLS?

Real-time location systems are wireless tracking systems used to locate equipment, patients, and staff members in real-time. An RTLS consists of specialized fixed receivers positioned throughout the building that receive wireless signals from ID badges, worn by patients and caregivers, or tags attached to equipment and medical devices, to accurately identify where the tagged assets are located within a building. Each tag has its own unique identification code, or signal, that the fixed receivers can read and precisely locate. Hospital staff can log onto the system from any workstation or mobile device and quickly identify where specific patients or equipment are located.

But the real value of RTLS technology is not in its ability to track, but about equipping nurses and caregivers with real-time data that improves the patient experience.

RTLS and Workflow

Real-time systems have the ability to “tag” a complex workflow environment that will optimize staff and patient flow during peak demand times in a facility. When both patients and physicians are wearing ID badges, it allows the staff to completely manage the care delivery process by knowing who is available, what equipment is in use, where the patient is and who has seen them last. It reduces the lag in a long chain of communication, and streamlines the patient care process.

RTLS and Asset Tracking

In addition to managing the workflow of staff, RTLS is equally effective and directing the effective use of facility equipment. Oftentimes hospitals purchase up to three times the amount of equipment and medical devices they actually need because it is difficult to track them as they move from room to room. By tagging widely-used hospital equipment through the real-time location system, physicians can quickly and accurately locate where it is, who is using it, and in what part of the delivery process it is in. That means RTLS can identify whether or not the assets have gone through the proper decontamination process and is ready for use again. These alerts can be integrated and ensure that medical devices and safely and efficiently used throughout the facility.

RTLS and PHI

Another very innovative use of RTLS technology is protecting personal health information, or PHI. Tags can be applied to devices that contain secure patient information like computers or tablets, and program the system to alert if they are removed from a certain area or even auto-log out at designated times. It is imperative that hospitals maintain the HIPAA and protect PHI, and RTLS solutions are allowing hospital staff to closely monitor the dissemination of these records.

RTLS Cost/Benefit

Integrating real-time location systems is certainly an investment for any healthcare facility. But an overwhelming amount of adopters are reporting a great ROI and citing operational efficiency gains. From reduction of unnecessary asset purchases, to improvements in HCHAPS scores and patient satisfaction, there numerous ways to effective implement a successful RTLS solution and strengthen your healthcare infrastructure.