Over the next 5 years, with the continued aging of the world population and accelerated clinical technology advances, demand for in-patient bed capacity is projected to rise substantially. Due to this rise in demand, Bed Management will become critically important to manage and insure in-patient throughput. Likewise 60% of a hospitals total cost today are attributed to labor, mainly nursing. The combination of the two represent perhaps the most criical resources at the hospitals disposal to affect outcomes and the bottom line.
Bed Management has traditionally been a background activity in hospitals that few administrators managed directly – unless there is a problem. Inefficient, or worse, ineffective Bed Management can create long-term systemic problems for patient, nurses, physicians and administrators. If not managed effectively, it directly impacts patient safety, patient and employee (nurse and physicians) satisfaction, and, ultimately the hospital's top and bottom line. Nurse scheduling is often done today with manual systems ranging from clipboards and spreadsheets to automated programs.
AGNITY PatientFlow™ solution combines bed management and nurse scheduling to mange two of the most critical resources affected by the patients admittances to discharge from the hospital. PatientFlow optimizes bed management and nurse scheduling around the patients needs, condition and required care.
Some of the inefficiencies and challenges in the Bed Management and Nurse scheduling process include:
- Poor inter- and Intra-departmental communication
- Disagreements on problem causes and ownership of problem correction
- Lack of integration between systems that increases manual work in bed scheduling and bed preparation
- Patients waiting too long for placement and treatment
- Patients treated in less safe settings
- Patients diverted to another department or hospital
- Surgeries delayed or cancelled
- Issues in care co-ordination
- Patient and employee (nurses and physicians) dissatisfaction
- Negative impact to revenue and bottom line due to poor resource and facility utilization
- Poor visibility/status in the bed management process
- Delay in patient discharge
- Delay in bed cleaning and uncoordinated housekeeping
- Inefficient capacity planning overall and for each department
- Balancing demands from different patient entry or transfer points (such as ER, OR, Ortho, etc.)
AGNITY Healthcare PatientFlowTM System provides timely communication and co-ordination among:
- Clinical staff
- Patient placement staff
- Nursing unit staff
- Environmental services staff
- Admitting staff
- Patient transportation staff
While reducing:
- Need for alternative patient placement for overflow bed conditions
- Wait time for patients entering the system through the Emergency Department
- Wait time for admitting surgery patients.
- Dietary costs through the elimination of food trays going to empty beds
- Pharmacy costs by eliminating medications going to empty beds
- Mismatch between nurse staffing needs per the actual patient census
- overtime and overall staff assignments cost
And increasing:
- Effectiveness in providing patient discharge services such as: Home Health transition and follow-up; physical therapy; social services such as: arranging for equipment; oxygen, wheel chairs; and other patient required services.
- Utilization of bed and capacity
- Employee productivity and utilization
- Thus providing better care and operational effectiveness with improved customer service
- Efficiency in near real-time adjustments of the nurses staffing based on bed occupancy and required roles and skills
- Capability to plan ahead based on detailed analysis available as various reports regarding nurse scheduling history and projections
