alongside and in conjunction with your EHR.\u00a0 <\/em>And, unlike many of your competitors, you\u2019ve aggressively rolled Office 365 out to both non-clinical as well as clinical associates.\u00a0 Since your enterprise-wide roll-out, have you seen any innovations come from the frontline that surprised you?<\/p>\nKeller:\u00a0 Yes, we have seen quite a few innovations from the frontline that we\u2019d characterize as pleasant surprises\u2014in three areas:\u00a0 the speed and efficiency of patient flow, elimination of duplicate technology, and real improvements in the productivity and coordination of clinical teams.<\/p>\n
Schmuland:\u00a0 I\u2019m interested to hear what you\u2019ve done to improve the speed and efficiency of patient flow. \u00a0When most health systems think about improving patient flow, the first thing they turn to is what\u2019s often referred to as \u201cEHR optimization\u201d.\u00a0 What has your approach been?<\/p>\n
Keller:\u00a0 Our outpatient teams quickly picked up on the value of using IM to improve patient flow.\u00a0 For example, IM and presence now enable them to have ad hoc conversations throughout the day from wherever they are\u2013 so they work in sync better as a team and depend far less on the phone or overhead page\u2013which reduces the number of times in a day they\u2019re interrupted.\u00a0 When physicians need a test, assistance, or are finished seeing a patient they IM their assistants rather than stepping out of the room to find them.\u00a0\u00a0 Patient flow is faster because team members can now find each other more quickly and make handoffs to each other within seconds instead of minutes.<\/p>\n
Another area we saw flow improvement was in inpatient imaging.\u00a0 In the past, if a physician ordered an MRI scan, the patient would automatically be scheduled, only to find out when the patient arrived in the imaging suite that they weren\u2019t even eligible for the scan because that had a contraindication like clips or metal implants.\u00a0 Now a nurse brings an iPad or a cart with Skype for Business in the patient room to allow the imaging team to remotely interview the patient for contraindications using videoconferencing without needing to leave the imaging suite.\u00a0 As a result, the imaging department has reduced the cost of late cancellations and patients are discharged sooner because the right alternative test is now ordered instead.\u00a0 This makes the entire process much faster and more comfortable for the patient.<\/p>\n
Schmuland:\u00a0 You mentioned that your Office 365 deployment has enabled you to eliminate duplicate technology in surprising ways. \u00a0Could you expound more on that?<\/p>\n
Keller:\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 We\u2019ve eliminated duplicate audio, webconferencing and 1-800 long distance costs by standardizing on Skype for Business as a single enterprise-wide platform for audio and webconferencing.\u00a0\u00a0 Plus we\u2019ve reduced some of the hidden costs of video conferencing because we no longer have to use a central scheduling desk to reserve rooms.\u00a0 We\u2019ve also been able to eliminate the need for a technician in the room when videoconferencing is needed.\u00a0 It just works.<\/p>\n
And I can\u2019t overemphasize the unexpected value of making the most current capabilities of Office 365 available to every end user.\u00a0 Because of our large and varied environment, we\u2019ve traditionally found it challenging to keep our Office products current.\u00a0 But once we moved to Office 365 it gave us the ability to roll out the most up-to-date features and security protections to our 44 campuses across 10 states.<\/p>\n
Another example is in the realm of virtual health. Several of our facilities are now using Skype for Business for psychiatric evaluations, which allows the evaluations to hit the chart sooner and the patient to receive the care they need more quickly.\u00a0 In the Chicago area our behavioral health teams are using Skype for Business for telepsychology sessions to avoid the delays in scheduling and travel\u2014for both the patient and psychologist.\u00a0 And in Kansas City, they\u2019re now conducting behavioral health consultations within the hospital from the remote offices of our psychologists.<\/p>\n
Telestroke is another area where we\u2019ve eliminated duplication.\u00a0 For remote neurologist consultations for possible strokes in the ED and even stroke observation, we used to roll in a customized telemedicine cart.\u00a0 Now we just use an iPad or a laptop with a front facing camera on a cart and our centrally located neurologists and neurosurgeons use Skype for Business for their consultations.\u00a0 Because we\u2019re already licensed for Skype for Business, we can now offer telestroke and telepsych services to more of our rural hospitals without incurring the high costs of custom telemedicine cart solutions.\u00a0 Patients really appreciate getting specialist care without needing to schedule another appointment or needing to go to another facility.<\/p>\n
Schmuland:\u00a0 Health professionals today must know more, do more, and manage more patients, cases, and complexity.\u00a0 This means that, to do their job efficiently, safely, and effectively, health professionals have to quickly and easily find and tap the expertise of others, often while they\u2019re on the move in a fast-paced work environment.\u00a0 How have your clinical teams improved their efficiency and ability coordinate care with Office 365?<\/p>\n
Keller:\u00a0 As I mentioned earlier, we\u2019ve standardized on Skype for Business for all of our IM, presence, audio, and video conferencing across our 10 states.\u00a0 This means that our employees and teams can easily schedule recurring and ad-hoc meetings and share their desktops anytime they want. \u00a0Presence and instant messaging has now been adopted by every business division including clinical, finance, and operations\u2014so everyone can now find each other faster and almost effortlessly and get the messages out or the help they need within seconds. \u00a0We\u2019re also seeing a rapid uptake in web conferencing by physicians reaching out to other physicians all over the country.<\/p>\n
Another productivity consideration for our clinical staff has been the growing volume of administrative meetings, training sessions, job candidate interviews, and calls they have to attend.\u00a0 For clinicians, every meeting potentially takes away from patient care time\u2014and clinician time is costly.\u00a0 With Skype for Business we\u2019ve been able to convert many of those in person meetings and trainings into virtual meetings and reclaim a lot of that administrative time for patient care.\u00a0 Instead of getting in their cars and driving\u2014and then parking and walking\u2013to these meetings, our clinicians can attend or start a meeting with a single click from their phone while in their car or laptop if they\u2019re at work or home.<\/p>\n
You mentioned that clinicians have to know more and do more than ever.\u00a0 That\u2019s definitely true.\u00a0 And to know more and do more they need to be able to tap the expertise of others, in real time when possible.\u00a0\u00a0 Many of our physicians are reaching out to and tapping the expertise of their physician colleagues all over country using audio and videoconferencing in Skype for Business.\u00a0 And we have a group of cancer researchers that are collaborating with each other by using OneDrive for Business with rights management to securely access and share files across their various devices.\u00a0 OneDrive for Business has saved them the time, frustration, and compliance risk of using unauthorized consumer cloud file shares.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve also improved the productivity of our patient sitters.\u00a0 In the area of simple patient observation, Skype for Business is enabling our patient sitters to observe more high risk patients at a time from a central location, eliminating the need to locate physically in the room with each patient.\u00a0We\u2019ve also improved the productivity of our IT help desk teams by using desktop sharing to troubleshoot issues or assist with application navigation or feature issues that our clinical and non-clinical staff have across our 44 campuses<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This blog spotlights Adventist Health System as another market leader that\u2019s achieving surprising results by democratizing innovation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1507],"post_tag":[],"content-type":[1483],"coauthors":[979],"class_list":["post-1479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-healthcare","content-type-thought-leadership"],"yoast_head":"\n
Collaboration-enabled healthcare enterprises \u2013 Part 4 - Microsoft Industry Blogs<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n