Inpatient lessons lead to successful outpatient initiatives

Surgery used to mean staying at least one night in the hospital.  Not anymore.  Today, 60-70% of all surgeries are performed in an ambulatory setting, and the number of other outpatient services is growing by 14% annually.  These outpatient services now include everything from ambulatory surgeries, endoscopies, interventional radiology, orthopedics, cancer / infusion and diagnostic imaging.

What is the same though, whether services are provided inpatient or outpatient, is the need for care coordination, efficient operational flow, and a positive patient experience.  As health systems are embracing the shift towards ambulatory care, TeleTracking’s Orchestrate™ solution provides a necessary tool to support and enable these services.

From a patients perspective, an outpatient service means that they are going to one facility for a single procedure.  From a provider perspective, however, many different functions and departments are involved – all of which must be coordinated and streamlined.

The Orchestrate™ solution gives providers complete visibility into patient flow and workflow in real-time – including such metrics as 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, Orchestrate™ bridges the gap between scheduling and what actually happens; this data makes it possible to track milestones in real-time and implement long-term operational improvements.

For example, the Huntsman Cancer Center, part of the University of Utah Health Care, implemented Orchestrate™ to help resolve workflow and communication issues resulting from a major expansion the prior year.    Caregivers are now able to track the patient’s progress through an appointment.  Some of the positive impacts on workflow and the patient experience include:

• cutting 100 daily calls between the front desk and nurses
• eliminating over 200 daily patient status calls between nurses and pharmacists, allowing more time for clinical calls between staff members
• enabling nursing managers and supervisors to easily monitor patient flow and intervene to quickly resolve bottlenecks
• allowing pharmacy managers and supervisors to monitor work flow through their area as well as the amount of time required to prepare IVs for patients

If you’d like to learn more, contact us at info@teletracking.com or 800-331-3603.