by Elizabeth Hofheinz, M.P.H., M.Ed., October 17, 2019
A recent article in HealthLeaders (Mandy Roth, October 8, 2019) has highlighted the role of so-called “command centers” in the next wave of efforts to reduce cost and enhance the patient experience.
The article discusses one facility, Tampa General Hospital, a facility that has saved $10 million by reducing inefficiencies and has decreased the average length of stay by nearly half a day per patient.
CEO John Couris called in GE Healthcare Partners to help build a “command center.” The new facility, known as CareComm, boasts 8,000-square-feet, 38 wall-mounted LCD screens displaying live data, 32 workstations, multiple computer systems, and a multidisciplinary clinical team that includes doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals. Highlights include:
- 20 artificial intelligence apps, or “tiles,” from GE Healthcare that process hundreds of messages every minute, apply advanced analytics, and provide decision support for CareComm staff.
- Individual tiles monitor patient flow and track
delays in care.
- Four monitors featuring touch screens; the same information displayed in the command center is available on computers throughout the hospital.
With these additions, the hospital now has a 360-degree view of activity throughout the organization, said Couris in the article.
Couris noted, “Now, [we have] real-time insights that we’re able to give to our team members to empower them to make decisions at the point of care that results in higher quality, better patient flow, and, most importantly, a better experience for our patients.”
VP of care transitions Peter Chang, M.D., indicated that CareComm has resulted in a vastly accelerated patient experience—”from the time between when a patient enters the facility and sees a clinician to the moment they receive a diagnosis, treatment, or discharge.”
CareComm has also increased “situational awareness to the point where we’re actively managing patients at the bedside—at the point of care,” said Chang.
Jeff Claeson is CTO and Co-Founder of Surg.io, a company focused on software solutions for the management of orthopedic instrument and implant inventory as well as hospital sterile processing and perioperative solutions. He commented to OSN, “It’s great to see AI beginning to make an impact on healthcare and patient care. Applying experience and knowledge, especially deep and highly specific knowledge, to large datasets is the path forward and AI makes that possible at unprecedented scale and speed. It’s all about finding actionable data and applying it. We’re seeing the benefits of actionable data at Surgio where we’re helping our healthcare partners and customers apply it and measure change in ways they’ve never been able to do in the past. It’s exciting to see healthcare evolving and technology helping to drive change!”
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