Information Systems
Patient Satisfaction guru Quint Studer describes the CEO's "ultimate" dashboard in a recent Becker's Hospital Review article. The dashboard is a concise selection of metrics for laser-focusing on the issues that drive results. These metrics fall into four "buckets": productivity, volume, clinical quality and service.Laboratory Cost Improvement: Achieve cost savings using labor productivity and expense
This recent presentation provides an approach for labor and non-labor cost reduction using internal and external benchmarks. The benchmarks are based on extensive experience by the author's organization. The presentation includes productivity benchmarks for the various types of specialties within the typical hospital lab.
Just like many IEs in healthcare, Mark Odom started his career in manufacturing right out of college. He has found many valuable lessons from manufacturing that he now uses as the CIO of St. Bernards Healthcare.
Insights from the McKinsey & Company international survey can help your healthcare organizations plan your next moves in the journey toward full digitization. The authors believe the healthcare industry is on the cusp of a third wave of IT adoption and that now is the time for it to go all in on digital strategies. Understanding what patients want - and what is purely myth - can help pave the way.
Cloud-based electronic health record vendor Practice Fusion has launched a continuously updated database of de-identified patient information.
After months of anticipation, Apple recently unveiled its new health app - its cloud-based information platform known as "HealthKit," and a slew of new partnerships with Epic Systems, Mayo Clinic and a number of other hospitals.The open question: Will Apple's big play for the health care market end up changing the industry - and if so, how soon?
Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare had a nurse retention problem. Between 80 percent and 90 percent of the system's nurses left within the first year, and a growing number were leaving before the 90-day mark.
Starting in 2012, Washington emergency rooms began tracking patients in a mandatory, statewide database as part of an effort to supply the necessary health information to divert patients from trips to emergency rooms for non-urgent problems. Dr. Nathan Schlicher, an ER doctor who serves on the board of the Washington State Medical Association, said the Emergency Department Information Exchange has given hospitals a way to monitor patients and keep hospitals up-to-date regarding patients' health records.
This article in JAMA describes the case for adoption of mobile health technologies (mHealth) and the potential for future application from a clinician's perspective.
The authors of this presentation describe how industrial engineering research improved patient access and reduced cost by applying a machine learning simulation approach at Grady Health System in Atlanta.
This was a presentation at the 2013 SHS Healthcare Systems Process Improvement Conference
Hospitals and health systems spend millions of dollars to acquire and meaningfully use certified EMRS and EHRS nationwide. This presentation from the 2013 SHS Healthare Systems Process Improvement Conference describes a for-profit health system's experience in deploying efficient workflows that lead to increased acceptance and usage by physicians and other stakeholders to realize many benefits including receiving CMS incentives.
Project management - "An Overview for IT"
This presentation provides a description for effective project management of IT projects that can be applied in healthcare.
Kaiser Permanente's healthcare IT Journey
This presentation (large download) at the 2012 World of Health IT Conference describes how Kaiser Permanente is successfully leveraging IT resources to improve patient care.
Ergonomics and technology: The future
"By standing for 2 hours throughout an average workday, you can burn 280 extra calories. In one year, that converts to roughly 20 pounds of weight loss. Results vary depending on body shape and metabolism."
In this presentation at the 2012 Healthcare Systems Improvement Conference, the author addresses the need to increase ergonomics awareness in and out of the workplace by exploring new technology such as tablets, readers and smartphones, their use and place in the work environment as well as the ever-changing workplace, including trends in the office and telecommuting.
Using electronic health records to improve quality and efficiency: The experiences of leading hospitals
This report from the Commonwealth Fund describes recent experiences of leading hospitals in implementing electronic health records.
A recent article in the online journal Hospital and Health Networks describes a host of innovative, implantable, ingestible wireless medical devices being developed to advance medicine into the future. These technologies show potential to improve patient care, reduce medical errors and lower costs.
Lessons learned from moving to Web-based surgical requests
The authors delivered a presentation and paper at the 2011 SHS Conference providing a comprehensive case study of how the Sir Mortimer B. Davis-Jewish General Hospital in Montreal, Quebec, moved from a paper surgical request process to a web based system. The lessons learned described by the authors will be valuable for anyone undertaking a similar large scale IT change.
Prevailing misperception is that implementing any EHR complies with HITECH ACT requirements and incentive qualification. EHR implementation is only one part of meaningful use. Meaningful Use depends on workflow, evidence based clinical practice, measurement and reporting. In this presentation prepared for SHS by Kevin Martin, meaningful use is described along with the practical applications for organizations providing clinical care.
Vision-based recognition of hand gestures is being researched at Purdue University to control a robotic scrub nurse and access images during surgical cases. The research could lead to short case lengths and reduced infections according to the Purdue University News website.
A case study of a centralized patient tracking system at Sentara Careplex Hospital in Hampton, Va. The case study shows how Sentara was able to reduce patient registration labor by over 50 percent and save over $300,000 per year.
In research sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), UW researchers summarize findings and associated research from a 2009 conference in a report entitled Industrial and Systems Engineering and Health Care: Critical Areas of Research.
One hospital details improvements to their medical equipment retrieval, cleaning, and distribution process.
This paper details the errors in medical history records that can occur over time within the present U.S. system, and proposes a solution.
Lean tools and simulation are used to recommend improvements to HIM operational processes.
In this presentation given at the 2010 SHS/ASQ Healthcare Division Conference, the authors describe how a Baldrige Award winning hospital implemented a paperless continuous improvement patient safety system. The system is used for collecting patient safety events, and analysis, performance improvement, classification, and organizational knowledge building involving every single employee in the healthcare system. The automated patient system has dramatically improved event reporting and streamlined the analysis and follow-up.
An EMR is described that links physician and hospital records so that the same information is available in both doctors' offices and hospitals whenever the patient presents.
Quality Check is a resource summarizing the findings of all JCAHO survey results. This article describes the tool's potential applications.
A system for appropriate oversight of budgeted FTE's is discussed.
An editorial proposes a nationwide repository for results of all medical research.
Future advances in medical devices and informatics within health care IT are described in this article.
An ED is redesigned after patient flows were modeled using queuing theory.
The process of creating and achieving approval of an ED simulation is discussed.
Pharmacy decision-making is discussed, with focus on controlling costs.
Improvements to a provider appointment-making system are motivated, tested, and sustained
Improvements to a pediatric OR are proposed and tested with simulation.
Successful supply chain management is discussed. Examples show potential savings and describe the buy-in needed to achieve those dollars.
Detailed description of a lean project to improve TAT in the CT Scan department.
Three successful lean projects are discussed in detail. Specimen Labeling, Surgery and Endoscopy Pre-Op, and Inpatient Nursing Crash Cart projects all demonstrate significant improvement.
Results of a hospital-wide specimen labeling lean project is discussed.
A productivity monitoring system is installed and used for each department in the system to measure budget compliance, production efficiency, and patient satisfaction. Decisions must be made regarding the weighting factors of each input to determine each department's relative score.
A pharmacy is simulated and the results are discussed.
A 100,000 annual visit hospital ED is redesigned using lean principles. Wait times decrease and pt satisfaction and revenue increases. Simulation shows further viability of new processes. This presentation is made by a MD who became a lean coach.
Issues with billing denials can be addressed by creating and addressing a Pareto chart of top reasons for lack of payment. This is analyzed through implementation.
Process improvement within the HR department is shown through this project dealing with RN flex staffing.
Justification of pay for performance
Billing error reduction as a Lean Six Sigma project
CPOE is implemented and results discussed.
A program is proposed that effectively confronts a majority of the issues with scheduling patient surgeries.
The author facilitates a lean educational journey through an ED.
Emergent Care was redesigned to decrease wait time significantly.
4 lean projects were performed - pharmacy, lab, outpatient clinic, and telemetry unit. Each project was meticulously documented in the presentation. Pre- and post- metrics are included, as well as a discussion of sustainability.
Lean principles are utilized during analysis and transformation of a HIM department. Results and lessons learned are discussed.
Lab collection and processing techniques are examined and improved. Results are discussed.
Hospital IT implementations must make assumptions to generate and defend the ROI. Several assumptions relevant to initial facilities planning are considered within this presentation.
ED charge capture is a constant problem for hospitals. This presentation covers one system-wide approach to increasing the capture rate.
HCA discusses its methodology for monitoring its usage of premium pay to ensure they use as little as possible.
A pre-registration Internet interface was successfully developed. Lessons learned and sustainability are also discussed.
RFID tags are a solution to the problem of losing items within hospital walls. This presentation discusses some of the requirements, accomplishments, and potential drawbacks of systemwide installation.
A pull system is implemented within a surgical suite, saving on inventory cost. Other accomplishments and lessons learned are discussed.
Payment denials were decreased, resulting in a cost savings of $1.6 million annually. This project steps through the list of improvements made.