The pandemic has solidified the idea that healthcare workers are some of the nation's most hardworking and valuable employees. However, their ability to provide care is often hampered by outdated operational systems and processes.
During a Jan. 28 roundtable hosted by Becker's Hospital Review and sponsored by Qventus, industry leaders discussed how hospitals can adopt real-time, artificial intelligence-powered software systems to improve patient flow and reduce excess days.
The panelists were:
- James Hereford, president and CEO, M Health Fairview
- Shelly Schorer, CFO, CommonSpirit Health's Northern California division
- Michael Mucha, vice president of customer success, Qventus
Five characteristics software platforms need to optimize patient flow:
- Aiding in early discharge planning. Reducing length of stay helps hospitals admit new patients, and therefore generate revenue more quickly. AI-powered algorithms predict when and where patients are likely to be discharged so that care teams can plan ahead. When this is done before the second midnight of a patient stay, this can lead to a 91 percent reduction in excess days. .
- Identifying barriers to discharge. This is especially important to ensure a timely process for complex discharges. For example, when barriers to skilled nursing facilities discharges (such as placement, authorizations, clinical consultations) are identified before the second midnight of a patient's stay, there can be a 39 percent reduction in excess days.
- Using a real-time platform. To adopt those best practices, hospitals need a system that integrates with their EHRs and uses machine learning to create a closed-loop system for managing operations. This allows them to identify operational issues before they occur, orchestrate actions among frontline teams and ancillaries, and manage accountability over time.
- Co-designing. Before a system is deployed, implementation teams should consult cross-functional working groups — including nursing, case management, physician and ancillary teams — to ensure the system is designed to fit their workflow needs.
- Supporting change management and continuous improvement. Having a state-of-the-art system is not enough; hospitals need to ensure that it's deployed and adopted in a standardized and comprehensive way. With a combination of software tools and change management expertise, systems should also be able to adapt to hospitals' evolving needs.
To view the webinar, click here. To learn more about Qventus, click here.