Streamlining Care in your Surgeries and Procedural Areas

In today’s healthcare climate, perioperative, diagnostic and outpatient clinic services are some of the key economic drivers at health systems. For example, more than half of a health system’s revenue often comes from surgical cases. Yet, the costs of running operating rooms and procedural care areas—like cath labs and endoscopy—are high and that why it’s essential that they are properly staffed and being fully utilized.  And just like with inpatient care, these types of complex ambulatory care situations require specific processes and workflows in order to deliver the coordinated, streamlined care that results in a positive patient experience.

Clinical Workflow™ Suite is a solution that gives health systems’ real-time visibility into patient workflow– including essential metrics like patient status, rooms/beds/treatment areas, and staff availability – from both desktop and mobile devices.  For facilities using a separate scheduling system or electronic medical record, Clinical Workflow™ Suite bridges the gap between scheduling and what actually happens—providing data that makes it possible to track milestones in real-time and implement long-term operational improvements.

How does this all come together?  Here are some of the positive outcomes TeleTracking clients are seeing every day.

First, there’s Health First, Central Florida’s only fully integrated health system.  Health First has 43 anesthesiologists that work across six different sites. These anesthesiologists had no visibility across the enterprise, and so it was difficult for staff to accurately create schedules— and that led to surgical delays.  This lack of real-time visibility was more than inconvenient— it was directly impacting revenue, since every minute an operating room wasn’t being used was a potential loss of $43.00.  In addition, the delays in care that were occurring were also negatively affecting patient satisfaction.  After the technology was implemented:

• On-time case starts improved by 50%
• The utilization of rooms during prime-time increased by an average of 45%
• Case volume increased by 13% from FY15 to FY16—serving an additional 616 patients, including 380 new orthopedic cases
• Room turnover time decreased by 30%—wheels out to wheels in

There are others with similar stories to tell. Goals of providing a consistent patient experience, improving throughput in order to reduce system leakage, streamlining processes, and tracking the number of patients seen in a day and orders placed during a visit.

In one example, system leadership implemented Clinical Workflow™ Suite, along with RTLS enabling technologies solutions to help track patients throughout their time in its health system-owned Cardiac and Vascular Center—a clinic comprised of 36 exam rooms, nine dictation rooms, two vital stations, and 13 diagnostic areas.  As a result, the clinic is experiencing outstanding early success with improving patient experience, and increasing throughput, as well as improving utilization and staff satisfaction.  For example:

• Average Patient Check-In to Patient in Room went from 24 minutes to 11 minutes.
• 75% of patients were roomed before 15 minutes for an average of 5.79 minutes
• 37 patients roomed earlier than scheduled appointment times for a total savings of 807 minutes

The technology that drives Clinical Workflow™ Suite takes the guesswork out of patient throughput with visual cues that let physicians and staff manage their time more effectively. It also makes it easier to manage performance with analytical capabilities that makes it possible to drill-down for deeper analysis of patient flow data. In addition, it gives inpatient nursing staff and other caregivers visibility regarding where a patient is for procedures when they leave the floor.