VCU Health: Patient Flow Improvements Health System Command Center

Speaker 1:

I've been here 10 years. It's a great place to work. You feel like you can make a positive impact. We're no different than any other healthcare organization. We have long lengths of stay. We have diversion hours. We're all trying to become more efficient. So our goal is to place the patient in the right bed at the right time the first time, and we couldn't do it without technology.

Speaker 1:

I know the impact of inefficient processes on throughput, the negative impact. TeleTracking was introduced to me. The beautiful thing about TeleTracking is you look at it as an operations platform, but it's flexible enough where you can apply it to other areas. It's about patient flow. It's about caring for the patient. I saw the value in it and I wanted to be a part of this in a more active way.

Speaker 2:

[inaudible 00:00:55] here's a tool that can do a lot of things for us, can help us with capacity management, can really move us to the future, but have to move barriers to get there.

Speaker 3:

Walk up to someone on a nursing unit and saying, how can I make your job easier? You'd leave having about a dozen things on your to-do list. As our volumes have grown over the need to see where the bed availability is in real time has become very important. The best description of it would be air traffic control. It's a big puzzle.

Speaker 4:

One of the biggest obstacles is all the competing priorities. We're at 100% capacity every single day, so our biggest challenge is the balance of getting patients safely discharged with all the patients that need to come in.

Speaker 6:

My goal is to give them time back to the patient and a more efficient workflow. I know it needs to be better than what they have now.

Speaker 7:

What we're looking at here is the TeleTracking screen. The biggest reason we're using these is to give communication to the floors in real time. So before, the only way the floor could know where these prescriptions were in the processing was a phone call. There were so many interruptions in what we're trying to do.

Speaker 8:

He had no way of prioritizing his workflow. He was just filling prescriptions as they came in. They now have a priority, they have a way to get their jobs done that will help get the patient home sooner.

Speaker 9:

TeleTracking helps us be more proactive versus reactive by giving us the data in that moment. So since TeleTracking has come on board, it has made the nursing workflow on the unit so much easier because it automatically updates.

Speaker 10:

We're all involved in the same conversation no matter where we are simply by logging into TeleTracking.

Speaker 11:

Thank you for calling VCU one call center. This is Monica, may I help you?

Speaker 12:

Do you have somebody to come into the ED?

Speaker 11:

Yes.

Speaker 12:

It looks like we have plenty of beds.

Speaker 13:

My team uses TeleTracking to see projected discharges and deliver regulatory documents. We have to at least give the patient four hours. Prior to the TeleTracking board being put to use, we were 70% compliant. Since utilizing the TeleTracking board, our percentage has averaged at 91%. that's a huge accomplishment. Kelly is the genius behind all of this.

Speaker 14:

I knew there was a better way, but I didn't know exactly what sort of tools would be out there to assist.

Speaker 15:

It's been very exciting to be able to see what she could achieve with the technology that we have.

Speaker 16:

Communication allows us now, I think, to manage the stress of the day. We still have 150, 160 discharges a day, and we have 150, 160 admissions. TeleTracking has really helped us.

Speaker 17:

There's so much work to do. We're constantly evolving. So no patient waits for the care that they need. We're making a difference.