Creating efficiencies and improving patient safety through mobile solutions

As the healthcare industry manages quarantines, temporary care locations and more, a flexible and portable solution is a must. Especially when it comes to the perioperative space, which entails voluminous documentation in a stressful, time-constrained environment.

The perioperative journey is comprehensive with many patient-provider actions along the entire continuum of care. Optimizing anesthesia workflows means simplicity, mobility, seamless data exchange and sharing.

As cases move outside of traditional healthcare settings, a mobile platform enables providers to adapt to the current environment.

Mobile surgical workflows – from pre-op to post-op can aid in patient safety

Mobile capabilities provide easy, quick, complete access to clinical information for busy anesthesiologists who are frequently navigating to multiple venues of care throughout the day.

Mobile solutions provide anesthesiologists access to clinical decision support (CDS) at the point of care (POC), and mobile devices feel more personal, enabling clinicians to “follow the user,” which is undoubtedly more beneficial than “checking things in my office before I leave.”

Mobility improves multiple dimensions of healthcare delivery that impact care quality – safety, effectiveness, efficiency, timeliness and the focus on the patient. It addresses multiple aspects of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI)’s Quadruple Aim, an important piece in improving patient safety.

Hendrick Health System’s experience

We’ve been using iPro Anesthesia for a couple of years, a cloud-based, mobile anesthesia information management system (AIMS) designed to improve documentation, operational efficiency, patient safety and medication management.

The mobility of the solution enables end-users to provide care from anywhere, which is of critical importance during periods of isolation. With resources tight right now, iPro is less expensive and more practical, and the mobile tablets are easier to clean and minimize the risks of infection.

Our clinicians can make more informed decisions with the smart alerts and hard-stops. The analytics module enables clinicians to share and analyze the critical perioperative data necessary to improve overall clinical outcomes and implement best practices for fighting COVID-19.

A seamless integration

iPro can integrate with third-party systems to share data in an automated manner. We chose iPro as an extension to the Allscripts Sunrise™ Surgical Care solution we use. The extension toolkit manages patients’ and providers’ work, while delivering real-time, actionable data, such as patient problems, allergies and medications, right in the palm of your hand.

What clinicians have to say: Seamlessness of care has made a huge difference

I asked my clinicians what they feel is the biggest improvement going from paper to iPro.

For them, the pre-op is much safer and more efficient because they don’t have to go looking for a patient’s previous data on paper or in different EHRs. If a patient has been here for surgery before, the patient’s prior pre-op information is already there in iPro, such as labs or x-rays. That alone has made a huge difference in patient care and their world.

It has also made post-op much more efficient. For clinicians to have that data at their fingertips no matter where they’re at and to be able to hand off in transition from patient to patient is a great benefit. Those two things combined have made their day easier and improved patient safety overall. That seamlessness of care has made a huge difference.

I spoke with one of our new anesthesiologists that came to Hendrick after spending time at an organization that used a different EHR. He was worried how hard it was going to be to transition from one software to another.

He said as soon as he came to Hendrick and saw how intuitive iPro is, his worries disappeared. He was able to step right in, take over and learn it very quickly. That adoption alone has made a big difference for us and is going to help us when we take on two other facilities within the next year.

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared on Allscripts' website

 

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