Leveraging New Technologies for Improvement – Disruptive Innovations in Healthcare

Today Dr. Dennis O’Leary will be talking to attendees at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement 23rd Annual National Forum on Quality Improvement in Health Care. Dr. O’Leary’s session, “Leveraging New Technologies for Improvement: Disruptive Innovations in Healthcare,” will focus on how new technology improves patient care while reducing the cost of health care delivery. Speakers will review methods to successfully introducing new technology to an organization. 
 
Dr. O’Leary will explain how inadequate resource visibility is the reason many health care providers encounter problems with:

• Cost management
• Risk mitigation
• Revenue identification
• Quality health care delivery

Dr. O’Leary details how RTLS helps manage costs through optimal utilization of assets and cuts risk by preventing hospital acquired infections and improved temperature monitoring. RTLS solutions also point out missed revenue opportunities in the emergency department and operating room. The quality of care is improved in hospitals using RTLS by reducing care delivery times and wasted time looking for equipment.
 
Leveraging New Technologies for Improvement: Disruptive Innovations in Healthcare will begin at 9:30 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. on Dec. 7.

Supporting Nurses to Achieve Success

A recent HealthLeaders article, “Engage Nurses to Raise Your Patient Safety Scores,” urges hospital leaders to get their nurses behind institutional patient safety and health care quality measurement and improvement efforts. The compelling central logic is that nurses are the ones who actually take care of patients. But who is getting behind the nurses—i.e., supporting them—in their patient care efforts?

Nursing Challenges

By multiple accounts, being a nurse in a hospital is not much fun these days. The number of tasks assigned to nurses grows by the day, but the number of nurses to do this work does not grow.  Each new task subtracts from face-to-face time with patients and the quality and safety enhancements associated with these interactions. And now, as reported in an article in the February 2011 issue of Health Affairs, “Performance-Based Payment Incentives Increase Burden and Blame for Hospital Nurses,” 86 percent of nurses recently questioned believe they are likely to be blamed for patient safety failures associated with government financial sanctions.

Awarepoint Advances Industry Leadership with New Patented Technology

We have received an unprecedented four U.S. patents for our real-time wireless location systems. Read all about our innovative RTLS solutions helping hospitals optimize revenue cycle management, improve patient safety and track supplies in our press release.

SAN DIEGO – November 15, 2011 – Awarepoint Corporation, today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has awarded the company four additional patents, which brings their total portfolio to 20 and bolsters the company’s position as the leading innovator of real-time wireless location systems (RTLS) for hospitals.
 
The new patents broadly cover Awarepoint’s most accurate mesh-based location algorithm to date, methods for detecting improperly sterilized medical equipment, and wireless technology architectures that drive enterprise wide visibility applications:

• Patent No. 8,033,462 for a wireless tracking system and method of automatically determining if medical and surgical supplies and equipment have been properly sterilized, helping to improve patient safety and quality of care.
• Patents No.  8,031,120 and 8,040,238 provide a process to enhance the detection of the exact location of hospital equipment and medical and surgical supplies.
• Patent No.  8,041,369 describes multiple wireless technologies that precisely track hospital workflows, improve enterprise-wide visibility, and optimize revenue cycle management. More…

RTLS Educational Webinars

We’re providing free webinars to educate physicians, nurses, and hospital staff on how RTLS works, improves patient safety, automates workflow, and ultimately drives provider costs down. Throughout the next year you’ll be able to learn about RTLS directly from hospitals that are using it. Find out what works and how you can reduce costs and improve efficiency for your hospital. The schedule is below and you visit http://www.awarepoint.com/clientaware/ to register.

• DEC 9, 2011 - Automating ED Workflow Through MEDITECH EDM
• DEC 15, 2011 - Driving Throughput via OR Workflow Automation
• JAN 18, 2012 - Driving Strategic Cost Containment via Automated Asset Management and Temperature Monitoring
• FEB 15, 2012 - Building a Business Case for RTLS – From the Basement to the C-Suite
• MAR 14, 2012 - Improved Operational Efficiency Through patient and equipment tracking
• APR 18, 2012 - RTLS Outcomes / Return on Investment
• MAY 16, 2012 - Driving Lean Process Improvement in the ED
• JUNE 20, 2012 - Effective RTLS for TRUST
• JULY 18, 2012 - Transformational ROI via ED Workflow Automation
• AUG 15, 2012 - Leveraging RTLS for Workflow Process Improvement
• SEPT 19, 2012 - Building the Workflow Automation Hospital
• OCT 17, 2012 - Driving Perioperative Workflow

Putting Automatic Throughput in the OR

This past week I had the opportunity to participate in the implementation of an RTLS system in the perioperative area.

This particular hospital has a peri-operative area that covers three floors and houses approximately 400 staff members and 600 surgeons along with residents, interns, and students. The area that I supported was the recovery area. They have operating rooms (ORs) on two separate floors with recovery areas on each floor. The recovery areas are further divided into patients that will be admitted and patients that are going home after surgery.

Patient Tracking for the Elderly

Tracking RTLS-enabled automatic tracking and workflow orchestration technology promises to improve the care and overall hospital experience of elderly patients.

As I was scanning the UK news this morning, a headline from The Telegraph grabbed my attention: “Elderly suffer poor care in half of NHS hospitals.” I’ve learned that you have to view headlines in British newspapers with a healthy dose of skepticism. However, in this case, the contents of the article from The Telegraph largely supported the headline. Here’s an excerpt:

Video: RTLS for Healthcare

Chief Technology Officer, Matt Perkins explains our Real Time Location Solutions (RTLS) offered to the healthcare industry for patient and asset tracking and workflow automation. Our industry leading, enterprise-wide RTLS solution improves patient care, safety, and outcomes.