Executive Brief: Beaufort Memorial Hospital

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1 Executive Brief: Beaufort Memorial Hospital Beaufort Memorial Hospital Realizes $480,000 in Annualized Cost Savings with MEDHOST PatientFlow HD and Consulting Services

2 You simply cannot strap new technology to old processes. Culture change and behavior modification must be a key part of any technology implementation As the only healthcare system to serve the Beaufort, S.C. area, Beaufort Memorial Hospital experiences a high volume of patients. Beaufort annually manages 50,000 ED visits and 200,000 outpatients, and averages approximately 10,000 discharges each year. Because this large patient base continues to grow, the 197-bed, not-forprofit hospital realized it needed to plan for the future and better understand how patients flow through the hospital. The first step for Beaufort, which has a reputation for being a forward-thinking organization in terms of leveraging and adopting industry-leading technology, was to search for a technology solution that would increase visibility into patient flow organization-wide. Beaufort leadership decided to implement MEDHOST PatientFlow HD, a patient throughput solution that provides mission-critical facility, clinical and patient-centric data the hospital needs to manage financial outliers and high-impact patients. PatientFlow HD increased transparency of patient-flow processes, but the hospital soon recognized it had to change its culture and overall care coordination. Beaufort engaged the MEDHOST Professional Consulting team to conduct a thorough assessment and implement a plan it could sustain. You simply cannot strap new technology to old processes. Culture change and behavior modification must be a key part of any technology implementation, said Ed Ricks, CIO of Beaufort Memorial Hospital. MEDHOST PatientFlow HD gives us great analytics, and MEDHOST consultants guided us through the necessary process and care coordination changes to enhance patient flow hospital-wide. Process and Cultural Changes MEDHOST consultants worked with Beaufort to establish a process action team comprised of individuals from all departments involved in patient flow. Together, the action team and consultants looked at PatientFlow HD data and evaluated related processes to determine where and how to make improvements. Beaufort also utilized a top-down approach for effective project communication and support, which helped all departments understand their accountability for patient flow.

3 Meaningful and Measurable Performance Metrics As part of the project, the MEDHOST consulting team examined the effectiveness of Beaufort s discharge planning procedures, assessing inpatient unit operations, overall case management and care coordination, and all other elements that impact discharge execution. The team identified how Beaufort could better manage discharges from the time patients are admitted, including establishing a working diagnosis related group (DRG) upon admission. This is now tracked in real-time with PatientFlow HD, giving case managers better insight so they can prevent costly length of stay (LOS) overages, which are not covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Considering Beaufort s Medicare and Medicaid payer mix is more than 75 percent, it was especially critical that LOS be tightly managed. Beaufort also established and communicated clear, measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) and outcomes to continually demonstrate progress. One goal was to increase the number of discharges ordered by noon, which historically occurred 11 percent of the time. By changing and measuring the various aspects that affect patient discharge, such as physicians managing and prioritizing patient rounding, 43 percent of the hospital s discharge orders now occur by noon. The hospital is currently working to further improve processes and discharge planning to require discharge orders by 9 a.m. and is tracking this closely with PatientFlow HD. Under the oversight of the multidisciplinary process action team, hospital discharge and case management processes were optimized, patient flow KPIs were standardized, and PatientFlow HD served as the data backbone for monitoring the success of the newly revitalized processes. Structured and Streamlined Communication Discharge Process Care Delivery Bed Management Process Management Tools, Technology and Systems

4 Financial and Patient Care Improvement Results By combining MEDHOST PatientFlow HD with MEDHOST Professional Consulting to redesign workflow and care coordination, Beaufort achieved numerous patient care and financial improvements: Reduced LOS by more than half a day. The graph below illustrates Beaufort s inpatient LOS improvements during the five months it conducted the patient flow improvement initiative. Maintained the LOS reduction, which resulted in annualized cost savings of more than $480,000. Worked with Environmental Services to track bed-turnover time from notification of a bed to be cleaned to when the bed cleaning was complete. By tracking and enhancing these processes, Beaufort experienced a decrease in bed-turnover time from 116 minutes to approximately 55 minutes, a more than 50 percent improvement. Applying this process improvement across the hospital s 10,000 annual admissions, created additional capacity for 115 incremental admissions. Additional capacity created from reduced LOS and process improvements led to $1.2 million in new operating income. Beaufort Memorial Hospital Inpatient Length of Stay Improvements with MEDHOST Professional Consulting and PatientFlow HD 4.8 Average Length of Stay by Days October November December January February

5 MEDHOST PatientFlow HD provides visibility into the moving parts involved in patient flow, giving us insight into financial outliers and high-impact patients, such as 30-day readmissions, patients exceeding their reimbursed length of stay, and those occupying higher acuity beds than necessary, said Patricia Foulger, RN, vice president of quality and risk for Beaufort Memorial Hospital. This knowledge, combined with MEDHOST s team of consultants working with us to identify the greatest areas of opportunity to enhance processes, has played a key role in helping transform care coordination across the hospital. The results truly speak for themselves. About Beaufort Memorial Hospital Beaufort Memorial Hospital is a 197-bed, not-for-profit acute care hospital and regional referral center in Beaufort, S.C. Situated on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, Beaufort is the largest hospital between Savannah, Ga., and Charleston, S.C. The hospital s mission is to improve the health of its community, and it is committed to leveraging the highest quality technology to help provide patients with superior healthcare services. About MEDHOST MEDHOST, Inc. provides market-leading enterprise, departmental and healthcare engagement solutions to approximately 1,000 healthcare facilities. Our intuitive, easy-to-use and SaaS-enabled solutions are complemented by a robust suite of managed hosting, outsourcing and consulting services that are changing how clinicians and hospital leaders work and communicate, while generating notable operational, patient flow, care and revenue improvements. MEDHOST delivers value by enabling hospitals of all types and all sizes to better manage care and the business of healthcare, as well as meet evolving regulatory requirements.

6 The American Hospital Association Exclusively Endorses the Patient Flow Management Solution from MEDHOST For more than 100 years, the American Hospital Association (AHA) has been a powerful symbol of quality. By consistently applying a formal due diligence process, AHA Solutions, Inc., an AHA member service, identifies products and services that foster operational excellence in our nation s hospitals. AHA Solutions, Inc., a subsidiary of the American Hospital Association (AHA), is compensated for the use of the AHA marks and for its assistance in marketing endorsed products and services. By agreement, pricing of endorsed products and services may not be increased by the providers to reflect fees paid to the AHA. MEDHOST Solutions Corp Carothers Parkway, Suite 100, Franklin, TN Toll free MEDHOST Solutions Corp. All rights reserved.