Intelligent InSites

June 13, 2013

Last week I had the opportunity to attend AAMI 2013 in Long Beach, CA, a conference put on by the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation. Attendees regularly consist of Healthcare Technology Managers (HTMs) and BioMed Engineers. One theme throughout this conference was the merging of these roles with IT as well as the increasing importance and responsibility of these roles.

As one of the more candid speakers put it, “no longer can BioMed stay in the basement and not communicate with their C-suite,” but instead they are taking on larger responsibility and need to make recommendations to their C-suite.

A good example of an empowered BioMed department is at the Department of Veterans Affairs VISN11. Michael McDonald, with VA, hosted a session entitled “Using RTLS to Enhance Patient Care and Increase Operational Efficiency.” This RTLS implementation is not only the largest to date, but it’s spanning multiple facilities and multiple integrated technologies.

A little more about what Michael presented: VISN11 is comprised of seven VA Medical Centers and 29 operating Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOC) and will track over 439,000 items. Some of the goals and outcomes of the solution:

- Decreased operational costs
- Maximized equipment utilization
- Minimized lost and misplaced items
- Increased clinical efficiencies and staff productivity
- Reduced delays in patient care

A key part of that, as Michael stated, is that “it all pours into one system, Intelligent InSites, giving a single UI for reporting to the entire VISN.” One of our favorite questions came at the end when an individual was trying to wrap his head around this: “You have one front-end? For the whole VISN? With all of those different RTLS technology vendors?” Why yes, that’s absolutely right. We call it the power of the platform.

Thanks for a great show AAMI!

Steve Striegel, Marketing Team
Intelligent InSites

May, 20, 2013

I recently read an article entitled “ACOs Complain of Problems With Payer Data, but Some Say They Expect Too Much,” published by ACO Business News.

Throughout the article I could perceive an urgent need to supply ACO partners with accurate, actionable data in real time. What I found particularly interesting was the statement that the information needed to succeed in care management and cost containment goes beyond clinical data.

According to Dick Salmon, M.D., Cigna’s national medical officer for performance measurement and improvement, Cigna gives its ACO partners data which includes information on which patients are in the hospital, their diagnoses, and when they’re going home. However, “for many patients we actually don’t have discharge data real-time — we get informed a day or two later,” he says, adding that Cigna’s ACO partners want and need that information in real time.

This is where I see a huge opportunity for ACOs to leverage operational intelligence derived from Real Time Location Systems (RTLS). By utilizing RTLS technology, ACO partners can have real-time access to automatically collected admission and discharge information, giving them precise information on Length of Stay (LOS) and other key operational metrics.


Supplied with this information, IDNs will be better positioned to negotiate more effectively with payers, especially in a capitated model.  Healthcare providers can also identify, much more accurately, where processes are falling short of desired standards across the IDN, providing them with additional opportunity for increased revenue and cost reduction.

Sincerely,
Eric Novack, MD
Senior Medical Advisor, Intelligent InSites

May 15, 2013

Join us for our upcoming webinar, next Thursday (May 23, 2013) at noon CT, to hear from two recipients of HIMSS13 Intelligent Hospital™ awards, the Department of Veterans Affairs and Group Health. They will be sharing best practices for RTLS/RFID success, based on their experience implementing Intelligent InSites’ operational intelligence platform and RTLS solutions for asset tracking and management and patient flow.

Here are some of the topics that will be presented during the webinar:
1) A roadmap to making the vision of the Intelligent Hospital™ a reality for your healthcare system
2) Preparation tasks and baseline activities before starting your implementation process
3) Best practices for successful enterprise-wide deployment of an RTLS solution
4) Tips on managing continuous process improvement and achieving enterprise-wide success

This is a free event, so don’t wait – register today: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/265574250

Talk to you next week!
Shelly Schulz, RN
Manager of Learning and Development

P.S.  In case you are unable to participate due to scheduling issues, please go ahead and register anyway.  This will enable us to send you a follow-up email with a link to the webinar recording after the event.

May 10, 2013

This week we celebrate National Nurses Week (May 6-12). It is a time which reminds us to appreciate the hard work and effort that nurses and other healthcare professionals put forth to care for those in need of medical attention, caring, compassion, and hope.

Here at Intelligent InSites, we understand the critical role that nurses play in the well-being of patients, and it is very fulfilling to know that our healthcare solutions allow nurses to deliver better care and spend more quality time with patients.

By taking advantage of innovative technologies, such as RTLS, nurses can stay focused on their patients, rather than entering data that could have been automatically collected, or looking for medical equipment that could have been automatically found.

So thank you Nurses for all you do, and we look forward to continuing to help you do what you do best –giving your time, energy, and compassion to those that need it the most!

Sincerely,
Marcus Ruark, Vice President
Intelligent InSites

May, 3, 2012

Next week, the World Health Organization (WHO) will celebrate a hand hygiene promotion and improvement event called SAVE LIVES: Clean Your Hands.

The global reach and commitment of this event is truly unique, as hundreds of public and private organizations, such as ministries of health, centers for disease control and prevention, academic institutions, and patient associations –from around the world– will join the WHO in this important event to help combat healthcare associated infections (HAI).

Here is an interesting infographic: “My 5 Moments for Hand Hygiene,” published by the WHO, which defines the key moments when healthcare workers should clean their hands:

- before touching a patient,
- before clean/aseptic procedures,
- after body fluid exposure/risk,
- after touching a patient, and
- after touching patient surroundings.

At Intelligent InSites, we are thrilled to offer staff and patient safety solutions that can help healthcare providers deliver safer care. With the reporting capabilities of the InSites solution, we can assist healthcare organizations in monitoring and managing hand hygiene compliance on the departmental, hospital, and an IDN level, which is a vital component of any successful patient safety campaign.

As the World Health Organization says, “Clean Care is Safer Care”!

Sincerely,
Marcus Ruark, Vice President
Intelligent InSites

April, 26, 2013

Recently there have been some posts on the Association for the Advancement of Medical Instrumentation (AAMI) eForum, discussing The Joint Commission’s stance on blanket warmer cabinet temperatures.

One of the AAMI members asked if they have to follow the ECRI recommended practice of 130 degrees Fahrenheit. Their hospital performed an in-house risk assessment and determined that the blanket warming cabinets could operate at 160 degrees Fahrenheit without harming patients.

The Joint Commission responded that they would survey according to the organization’s policies. If the organization had adopted ECRI recommended practice of 130°F then that is what they would expect, but if the organization had defined a different range—and could support that decision by completing an acceptable risk assessment—the updated range could be used.

In any case, to protect against potential patient harm, the organization needs to demonstrate that the blanket warmer temperature does not go outside the operating temperature range.

Meeting this patient safety objective is automatic and straightforward with the InSites app for warming blanket monitoring. Our solution automatically collects temperature readings and alerts appropriate staff members in real time if the temperature in the warming cabinet goes outside acceptable thresholds. This allows you to quickly respond to this situation, minimizing a potential patient safety risk.

But knowing and responding to a situation when it occurs isn’t enough. In order to pass The Joint Commission survey, your organization needs to be able to provide documentation surrounding regular temperature checks and corrective actions. With the InSites solution, you have access to easy-to-read reports, graphs, and corrective action documentation showing all historical information–making regulatory compliance a lot easier for your organization.

Sincerely,
Marcus Ruark, Vice President
Intelligent InSites

April 19, 2013

Last week I came across the Matrix-inspired television ad from GE Healthcare, “Agent of Good: Connected Hospitals,” which shows the possibilities that come from using RTLS (Real-Time Location Systems) in hospitals.

It’s nice to see GE show a broader audience the value of RTLS, which connects patients, care providers, medical devices, and patient family members, and “helps hospitals treat people even better while dramatically reducing waiting time.”

That being said, RTLS doesn’t need to be depicted as sci-fi technology.  As many leading healthcare systems already know, RTLS solutions have already been implemented by many healthcare providers, ranging from the United States’ largest integrated healthcare system, the Department of Veterans Affairs, to small, community health centers, like Family HealthCare.

RTLS is here today, in the real world.  And, unlike the Matrix-themed ad, it’s a technology with a very humanistic touch.  With that in mind, I invite you to watch the video from Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Alliance, which is using our operational intelligence platform, with RTLS, to improve the patient experience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE8BLyYAQrg.

Sincerely,
Marcus Ruark, Vice President
Intelligent InSites

A warm welcome (from still snowy Fargo) to Dr. Eric Novack as he joins the InSites Team as our Senior Medical Advisor.

Dr. Novack brings over 20 years of healthcare delivery experience as an emergency medical technician, mental health worker, and accomplished orthopedic surgeon with a busy practice in Phoenix, Arizona.

Dr. Novak has wide experience caring for patients in diverse healthcare settings, including rural, urban, trauma centers, VA medical centers, and academic medical centers. As our Senior Medical Advisor, Dr. Novack will work closely with our healthcare customers to share best practices on using our real-time operational intelligence platform to improve care, enhance the human experience, and increase efficiency.

We are thrilled to have Dr. Novack join our team and collaborate with healthcare providers to deliver best care at lower cost.

Welcome Dr. Novack!

Marcus Ruark, Vice President Intelligent InSites

I’d like to share an insightful article by Timothy R. Zoph, Senior VP and CIO at Northwestern Memorial HealthCare Chicago, entitled “IT Leadership: A Look Ahead.”

It is great to see healthcare executives start realizing the true value of technology. As Zoph puts it: “We are moving beyond task-oriented technology implementation, such as obtaining meaningful use incentives, and are beginning to realize the true value of technology in terms of measurable returns in productivity, cost, and patient outcomes.”

I could not agree more!

A great example of successful transition from task-oriented technology approach to outcomes-based approach is the use of Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) by healthcare organizations.

Not too long ago, when hospitals were thinking about deploying an RTLS solution, their main point of discussion was selecting the specific locating technology (e.g. “Should we use Wi-Fi or ZigBee?”).

Now, when we talk to healthcare executives about RTLS, they want to know how this technology will improve their patient flow, optimize capacity, increase asset utilization, reduce rentals, and improve their overall healthcare efficiency.

It’s extremely encouraging to see this transition, as this is exactly what our solution delivers.

By way of example, let’s talk about the classic use of RTLS to find your “stuff.”

If a healthcare organization is using RTLS solution merely to find their equipment faster (a “task-oriented approach”), such an organization would be missing out on the tremendous opportunity of RTLS to achieve transformational process improvements.

However, if the hospital is looking at RTLS technology from a value perspective (i.e., how much more time will nurses be able to spend at the patient bedside, how can equipment processes and inventories by optimized, how can capacity management be improved) the hospital can truly change the way they operate and achieve measurable hard-dollar cost savings—all while improving patient satisfaction and patient care.

We look forward to these exciting changes ahead as healthcare organizations fully adopt a value-driven technology approach.

Sincerely,
Marcus Ruark, Vice President
Intelligent InSites

Today was a very exciting day at HIMSS13 in New Orleans!  First, two of our customers were recognized during the Intelligent Hospital Awards Ceremony.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Integrated Service Network 11 (VISN 11) received the Improving Regulatory Compliance award,

[shown in the photo above, from the left: Dr. Paul Frisch - President and CTO, RFID in Healthcare Consortium (RHCC); Michael McDonald - MS, CCE, VISN 11 Biomedical Engineering POC; Keley John Booth, M.D. - Senior VP Advanced Perioperative Clinical Care, RHCC;  Robin McLeod - VAAAHS SPS Chief; and Kimberly Brayley - Director, RTLS Project Management Office, Veterans Health Administration]

and Group Health Cooperative received the award for Most Innovative Use Case.

[shown in the photo above, from the left: Donnell Coomes - Senior Project Director, Group Health Cooperative; Dr. Paul Frisch - President and CTO, RHCC; and Keley John Booth, M.D. - Senior VP Advanced Perioperative Clinical Care, RHCC]

Next, the grand prize of the Intelligent Hospital Awards Ceremony—the 2013 Intelligent Hospital Grand Award—was presented to the US Department of Veterans Affairs, which is using Intelligent InSites as their enterprise-wide operational intelligence platform across their 152 VA Medical Centers.

Finally, at the highly-anticipated HIStalkpalooza event that evening, we had the great pleasure to congratulate the visionary IT leaders of one of our customers, Texas Health Resources:  Ed Marx, for receiving the Most Effective Provider Healthcare IT Executive award, and Dr. Ferdinand Velasco, for receiving the Most Effective Medical/Clinical Informatics Professional award.

[shown in the photo above, from the left: Ed Marx – CIO, Texas Health Resources and Dr. Ferdinand Velasco – CMIO, Texas Health Resources]

All in all, a great day at HIMSS13, and well-earned recognition for these innovative healthcare leaders!

Congratulations!

Sincerely,
Marcus