Encouraging results from use of the beacon technology have led to improved metrics, patient outcomes, and quality of life as well as reduced costs and decreased lengths of stay.
Special Care Providers (SCP) delivers care to catastrophically ill and ventilator-dependent patients within a contracted unit at a large teaching hospital. But this patient population often has poor outcomes, care is expensive, length of stay is frequently quite long, and readmissions are frequent.
In an effort to improve patient outcomes, SCP recently implemented a so-called “high-touch” multi-disciplinary model of care that uses beacon technology to monitor staff interaction with patients, encouraging and rewarding staff for quality patient care time. Since its launch in October of 2017, the project has already led to positive results.
“Physicians intuitively know that multidisciplinary care improves outcomes, but this project reinforces that feeling,” said Marcie Stoshak-Chavez, M.D., National Healthcare Leader at Centric Consulting. “A data-driven approach combined with a true patient provider relationship is the key to the success of this project.”The in-hospital special care unit ensures adequate staff intervention, monitoring time and impact of patient care, by using a low energy Bluetooth-enabled beacon embedded on badges of all diverse team of members that deliver intensive patient care. This non-intrusive technology ensures all practitioners are hyper-aware of patient interaction time by providing alerts when nearing or exceeding the designated amount of time.
This allows management and staff alike to intervene quickly to ensure the best possible outcomes. It also allows SCP to analyze the data to determine the best mix of interventions.
So far, SCP has seen encouraging results from use of the beacon technology, including improved metrics, patient outcomes and quality of life as well as reduced costs and decreased lengths of stay:
• Ventilator weaning rates have exceeded 80% (much higher than the national average)
• Decannulation rates have exceeded 63%
• A nearly 400% increase in subsequent discharges home
• Significant reduction in rates of readmission for their partner hospital
Also, both management and staff have embraced beacon technology, which has led to improved provider and patient (caregiver) satisfaction.
