TeleCon17 | Day One at a Glance

The opening session brought attendees together for a morning of inspiration and forward thinking.  Senior Vice President of Marketing, Kris Kaneta set the tone, talking about the triple threat – uncertainty related to reimbursements, tougher resource constraints [financial and staffing], and an aging population.  “Whether you call it a command center, a logistics center, or by some other name, as long as it’s about the patient, it doesn’t really matter,” said Kaneta when referring to the live Command Center set up at TeleCon17.  He also reiterated that TeleTracking is on this patient flow journey with our clients, and that we will never lose sight of our mission – to ensure that no one will ever have to wait for the care they need.

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Inspirational speaker Inquoris “Inky” Johnson then took the stage to deliver the keynote address.  Johnson, who was seriously injured while making a routine tackle at the University of Tennessee, is known for his relentless determination and the ability to overcome challenges with positivity.

He emphasized that in life we’re all faced with adversity and challenges that can get in the way of what we’re trying to accomplish.  And, if you really want something, opposition shouldn’t stop you, and being a difference maker means going the extra mile, even when you don’t feel like it.  He wrapped up his remarks with a quote from his first football coach “As long as you live your life making sure other’s lives are ok, your life will be ok too.”

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The inspiration at TeleCon17 continued with Nanne Finis, Vice President of Advisory Services and Tina Barnes Co-founder, Vice President Marketing & Communications for the DAISY Foundation presenting the inaugural DAISY Award for Patient Flow Excellence to Susan Kilgore, RN, Vice President Patient Management/Rural Outreach for Methodist Healthcare in San Antonio, TX.  The award recognizes nurses, and teams of care providers who are led by a nurse, for their work in transitioning patients through the care delivery system. 

Susan accepted the award, sharing “It’s been a journey that started 10 years ago with a great team and wonderful group of nurses.  We will always fight to get patients to the right place at the right time.”

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The morning shifted to the future with Diane Watson, Chief Operating Officer and Katie Romano, Head of Customer Experience discussing the patient flow journey we’re on together and steps we’re taking to make that journey a smooth one.

Common goals on almost everyone’s journey include reducing dead bed time, sharing best practices, bringing on new patient placement staff, and increasing predictability with tactics like having discharges out by 11AM.

The other common theme – we’re all striving towards the same thing―more time at the bedside. And that it’s about collaboration and being an active participant in the process.

Katie also talked about her new role in customer experience and what she has learned by listening to customers and consequently establishing key strengths and where we need to evolve.

Key learnings:

• We want to fix problems before they occur.
• We don’t want to make customers jump through hoops.
• We need to give better directions.
• We want you to feel like we’re in this together.

Actions that have already been taken include:

• Doubling the Advisory Services Team over past year.
• Creating the Center of Excellence so the best knowledge of all the people at Tele is in one place.
• Adding how-to tactics to our best practices.
• Looking at our training and making it easier to onboard employees to drive adoption.
• Taking a proactive approach to service by having Technical Support focus purely on calls; creating the Solution Center to help with technical aspects of projects; investing in software to monitor what is happening so we can see problems before they occur.
• Improving communication, including the launch in 2018 of a new experience platform that will help us manage contacts at client sites and deliver targeted messages
• Launching a lightweight installer tool, which will make an upgrade will feel like an update by only modifying folders where a change has been made.

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Kris Kaneta returned to the stage and talked about the current waiting game in healthcare—and the fact that there are no winners.  Waiting has crippled ability to deliver care:

• 3 million days waiting in ED for an inpatient bed.
• 37,000 deaths attributed to boarding
• For every hour with patients, doctors spend two hours on record keeping
• 52% of avoidable days are attributed to post-acute care.

In addition, by 2025, half of all people in healthcare will work for hospitals that can’t meet their financial objectives. Yet with a less than 1% increase in productivity, a profit margin of 6% can be achieved.  We need to go from surviving to thriving.  And that’s what guides TeleTracking’s belief system—that it is unacceptable that patients are not able to access the care they need, when they need it, due to operating inefficiencies and unnecessary cost barriers.

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Chris Johnson, Chief Solutions Officer, emphasized that we’re listening to what our customers are saying and outlined that TeleTracking will continue to:

• Build an operational foundation
• Expand command centers to become coordination centers, providing visibility across the care continuum
• Fulfill the promise of access while expanding it to include post-acute care
• Provide best in class analytics

As Chris summed up, “We want to liberate millions of hours that can be used to save lives.”

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In the afternoon, customers participated in product boot camps and Q&As, along with product portfolio updates.  They also had the opportunity to take in two new experiences:

Live Command Center: Customers experienced what it’s like to solve everyday problems across the care continuum―from inside the hospital to post-acute care setting.  Four scenarios will be available to go through step-by-step: a patient with a pre-scheduled procedure and a planned post-acute placement; a pediatric patient visiting a clinic admitted for a 23-hour observation stay; a patient diagnosed with a STEMI in the ED of a community hospital that requires transfer to a tertiary care facility; and a call from County 911 Emergency Services Center of a mass-casualty bus crash and the arrival of 50 patients.

Innovation Lab: The Innovation Lab will provide customers with the opportunity to share information with TeleTracking patient flow experts―helping chart a path for and validate new approaches to patient flow challenges.

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Tammy Moore, Vice President, Client Success Management delivered the closing remarks, which included recognition of health systems that were featured in Patient Flow Quarterly™ over the course of the year—Brittany Lindsey, UAB Medicine; Roz Lumpkin, Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital; Dianna Tatum, Cape Fear Valley Health; and Joan Kennedy, Trish George and Michaele Kennedy from UPMC.

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The day ended with another opportunity for clients to talk in a casual, relaxed atmosphere while enjoying a food truck round-up and lawn games and the spectacular Arizona sunset.