Elevating Patient Experience Through Informed Decision Making
Informed decision-making is crucial to operational efficiency, which fundamentally impacts the patient experience, but how do you facilitate it?
In the intricate world of healthcare, every decision reverberates—either orchestrating efficiency or fueling chaos. The pivotal difference lies in the effectiveness of those decisions. In a recent webinar Dr. Christopher Newman, Executive Vice President, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Medical Officer of Mary Washington Healthcare, delved into the power of informed decision-making, exploring its profound impact on the patient experience and operational efficiency.
The Power of Informed Awareness:
While many healthcare leaders are familiar with situational awareness, there’s a crucial step beyond—an evolution toward “informed awareness”. Unlike its predecessor, informed awareness transcends traditional boundaries, weaving past, present, and future insights into the fabric of decision-making. It connects every level and area of an organization, giving decision-makers the insight they need to make more effective decisions for their organizations.
In the recent webinar, Dr. Newman emphasized the importance of informed awareness, highlighting the crucial role that complete information played in Mary Washington’s operational improvement. They sought to overcome some of the most common and persistent challenges in the industry: waste and inefficiencies. By cultivating informed awareness, Mary Washington was able to propel itself past these issues, switching its approach from reactive to proactive decision-making.
“Before informed awareness, there’s a lot of waste, there’s a lot of inefficiencies, incomplete information,” Dr. Newman commented, remembering the challenges that the organization faced before changing its operational approach. He goes on to emphasize that without this elevated state of awareness, “exceptional patient care and operational stability are not possible”.
In order to move away from their previous inefficient state, they sought a higher level of awareness which would help align the organization, from the front lines to the executives. The outcome? By implementing the principles of informed awareness and aligning the correct technology to support it, Mary Washington was able to achieve sustainable, continuous improvement that further improved its standards for patient care.
Dr. Newman went on to assert that informed awareness as a concept has brought a level of wisdom and alignment to the organization that’s enabled the progress they’d been striving for.
“Where we really want to be is over on the informed awareness side, which is where you’re seeing not just the tip of the iceberg but the whole broader picture. And that is getting that full holistic visibility.”
The holistic visibility and higher level of awareness that Dr. Newman details enable the organization to make better operational decisions faster in key areas that directly impact the patient experience, including but not limited to:
Optimizing Patient Progression
Informed awareness unveils the barriers that prevent the progression of patients toward the next care transition in their journey, but it doesn’t stop there. It also provides a clear understanding of where the barrier exists, who is accountable for resolving it, and what actions must be taken to do so. This additional clarity allows for the fast resolution of patient progression barriers, paving the way for a smoother patient journey. Patients spend less time “stuck” waiting, receive more focused care, and have an overall heightened experience.
Dr. Newman points out that another key element of improving patient progression through informed awareness is the ability to “track and trend some of those barriers over time.” This enables the organization to identify what is causing recurring barriers, adjust its processes, and prevent those barriers from interrupting the progression of patients moving forward.
Getting Patients Discharged On-Time
Although ensuring a pleasant stay is vital, most patients would prefer to minimize their time in the hospital. From the point of admission, informed awareness ensures care teams are aligned around patient discharge goals and understand how to achieve them. Given everything that must be completed and coordinated prior to the discharge time, waiting until a physician writes the discharge order to start these activities may be too late, especially for complex discharges. With informed awareness, the care team knows to start discharge activities sooner so they are completed in time.
Also, Dr. Newman describes how hospitalists at Mary Washington have immediate awareness when they arrive on the unit in the morning as to which patients are anticipated to discharge that day so they are able to prioritize those patients. This means that patients who are clinically ready to be discharged are not waiting unnecessarily.
Making Patient-Focused Diagnostic Resource Decisions
As a common source of care delays and interruptions to the patient’s rest and recovery, diagnostic testing is key to a positive patient experience. Informed awareness gives organizations a holistic understanding of how valuable diagnostic resources can be managed in a way that minimizes patient inconveniences and speeds time to treatment.
Diagnostic orders are scheduled and prioritized with one consolidated view of all tests needed for the patient, the patient’s discharge target, the patient’s availability, and the availability of the diagnostic resources themselves. This results in timely, patient-friendly delivery of testing.
Patient treatment is expedited by eliminating long wait times and delays, and patients experience fewer off-unit trips, minimizing disruptions to their healing process.
Creating a Safer Patient Journey
Informed awareness becomes the linchpin for enhancing not just organizational efficiency but the safety and well-being of patients as well. With a new operating model and technology that fostered better awareness and faster decision-making, Mary Washington was able to make significant length-of-stay improvements that removed 13,400 excess patient days. Dr. Newman emphasizes the significance of this improvement on patient safety noting that with each avoidable patient day. “There’s a greater possibility for a medical error, a greater fall risk, and increased chance the patient will contract a hospital-acquired infection, and more ancillary and unnecessary testing.”
Additionally, an informed, aware front-line care team is more efficient and can spend less of their valuable time putting out fires and can give that bandwidth back to the patients. Dr. Newman noted the significance of this on the patient experience. “The more efficient you are, the more satisfied your staff is going to be, the more satisfied your patients are going to be, the lower the cost of the care, the higher the quality of the care.”
Better for the organization.
Better for the patient.
Elevating awareness isn’t just a strategic move for healthcare organizations; it’s a commitment to the well-being of patients. By embracing informed awareness as a framework for decision-making, hospitals not only improve operational efficiency but also foster a culture of care that resonates from the patient’s bedside to the executive boardroom.
Get in touch.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to achieve informed awareness and improve patient experience, get in touch with one of our experts!