A Workflow Solution

Improve Workflow

and

Remove the Waste!

Workflow can be described as the movement of documents and tasks through a business process. It can be a sequential progression of activities or complex processes taking place concurrently. As organizations rush to implement EHR's for incentive payments, they are not realizing that this is only one tool available to transform health care. Transformation of health care includes enhancing quality care, improving patient safety, expanding access to care and reducing the cost of care. Introduction of new technology often distracts us from our primary tasks.

In the transfer center there is a process that needs to be redesigned to improve quality care, decrease costs and improve patient outcomes. The process in which an accepting physician is contacted for a possible transfer of a patient from a referring facility that does not have the ability to care for the patient. This may be because they need a higher level of care than what is available at that facility or they need a specialty service that is available at our facility. Currently, the process is not efficient and there is a tremendous amount of wasted time that the patient, referring facility and transfer center nurses do not have a surplus of.




Workflow                                                                       Remove the Waste









 One barrier to the new design would be, " this is how we have always done it." Workflow and process redesign must consider the exiting patterns of care delivery and the ways to make them better along with the way human being process their environment. Human being make quick assumptions based on experiences.

The growing use of mobile electronic devices has resulted in the smarter technologies for operating systems. IPhone and Ipad have 500,000 app available for them as of 2012. These devices are being used by providers on a daily basis, and would not result in an additional cost to the organization. If we switched from pagers to cell phones for transfer requests the triple aim of the Institute of Medicine (2010) would be met. Improved patient outcomes, decrease waste which reduces costs, improved patient and staff satisfaction would be some of the benefits that this process change could result in. Those pagers that are still in use can be returned to the vendor and many departments provide a cell phone for services when they are on call. A sound understanding by the providers of the benefits of switching to cell phone notifications of transfer requests would be required for a successful implementation. Many providers are resistance to change because they do not see the big picture of the benefits for the patients and the organization as a whole.

Reference:

Chaiken, B. P. (2011, April). Transforming health care through improved clinicican workflows. iHealthbeat. Retrieved from http://www.ihealthbeat.org/perspectives/2011/transforming-health-care-through-improved-clinician-workflows

Nelson, R., & Staggers, N. (2014). Health Informatics, An Interprofessional Approach. St. Louis: Elsevier

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