In a recent Becker’s Healthcare webinar, two leaders from Healthcare Control Systems — Luke Doyle, Vice President of Operations and Sales, and Thomas A. Feo, PhD, CEO and Co-Founder — discussed why minute-by-minute coordination systems serve as an effective alternative and how to achieve full front-line adoption for new operational systems.
Five key takeaways were:
- Minute-by-minute coordination boosts hospital efficiency and coordination.
Like air traffic control systems, minute-by-minute coordination solutions cut across organizational silos and give hospital employees enhanced situational awareness.
ORControlTM is a minute-by-minute coordination solution designed to automate and coordinate all hospital-wide procedures. It puts physicians, OR staff and dozens of other groups and departments across a facility on the same page at the same time.
“With ORControlTM, teams become more efficient because they can reprioritize what they’re doing based on how cases are moving around in the OR,” Dr. Feo said.
Staff have visibility into ORControl data through large touch-screen monitors that are placed in various areas, as well as through their smartphones and tablets. Proactive alerts improve efficiency by informing environmental services to start cleaning the OR and notifying sterile processing that they can begin prepping the next room.
- ORControlTM follows patients on their healthcare journey through the hospital.
By utilizing RTLS tags attached to the patient chart, ORControl™ tracks patients from admissions all the way through discharge.
“Before the patient leaves the OR, the PACU is alerted that the patient is on the way and the system allows for proactive PACU bed assignments. The advanced alerting technology also notifies the patient’s family that the case has been completed and the surgeon receives confirmation that the family has been contacted” Dr. Feo said.
- ORControlTM augments existing healthcare IT systems.
While EHRs offer clinical information, enable data entry, and support clinical and regulatory reporting, they lack the ability to provide minute-by-minute information and analytics.
ORControlTM coordinates across siloed systems with automated data interfaces. This allows front-line staff to take full advantage of major IT investments.
“The idea is that minute-by-minute coordination lays over what you’re currently doing,” Dr. Feo said. “It’s not there to slow down your staff. These systems must be easy to use. Employees don’t have to enter data, take training or do things differently.”
- Enhanced operational efficiency improves the bottom line for hospitals and health systems.
Hospitals using ORControlTM have seen dramatic improvements in their operational efficiency. Panelists noted how one organization went from 35% to 94% first case on-time starts. Several facilities using ORControl TM now have average room turnover times of less than 20 minutes.
“During prime time, every single one of our hospitals has seen an increase in the number of OR cases,” Dr. Feo said. “It makes sense because now you don’t have staff sitting idle when a case is canceled at the last minute. With literally a touch and a swipe, you can rearrange the schedule, ensuring staff utilization and efficiency during the day.”
- ORControlTM provides flexibility.
ORControl TM is configured to focus on each hospital’s most common reasons for OR delays. This configuration can also change as organizations evolve and face new challenges or reasons for inefficiencies. “That’s not an additional cost,” Mr. Doyle said. “It’s all part of our relationship with the client. We want that back-and-forth communication.”
Healthcare Control Systems has successfully deployed ORControlTM more than 60 times. “It really builds team understanding, and more importantly, it supports the front-line staff,” Dr. Feo said. “At the end of the day, those are the people most involved in making sure hospitals are efficient and productive.”
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