HIMSS: Business intelligence may be key to success in the ED
To make a muddled emergency department (ED) system more transparent and better report on patient satisfaction and performance indicators, staff at the Hospital of Central Connecticut implemented a business intelligence (BI) model to simplify workflow and increase doctor-to-patient time, said Jeff A. Finkelstein, MD, chief of emergency medicine during a presentation during the HIMSS virtual conference expo June 9.
The Hospital of Central Connecticut consists of one hospital operating at two separate locations using one ED information system (EDIS)—the Bradley Memorial campus in Southington, Conn., sees 88,000 patient visits each year, while the New Britain General campus in New Britain, Conn., sees 18,000.
While most often BI is defined as software and technology that companies utilize, it holds equal importance for physicians who are constantly running ED reports, said Jonathan Rothman, MBA, principle, emergency medicine business intelligence.
While touching on the “somber mood” that exists across EDs in the U.S. today, BI, Rothman said, can help to “exploit information in a positive sense to do something cost effectively and to make change.” He said the changes pertain to anything from changes in staff to outlining and improving physician, nurse and patient outcomes.
“People are starting to consider BI as more than just as it relates to technology,” said Rothman. “It’s just as much about human interaction.”
BI today, particularly for the ED, refers to outlining quality information and using business friendly tools to provide timely, more transparent information, which is especially helpful when patient visits to the ER are on the rise.
“Once you get patients into the ED, there still is not a clean flow of the movement of those patients from the ED to an inpatient bed,” said Rothman. This is referred to as patient boarding, a significant challenge for the facility.
One problem many facilities face, including the Hospital of Central Connecticut, is that a multitude of patient data is entered into many different systems and more often than not the data do not exist in one single system.
“When you think about why institutions in healthcare need business intelligence, you have external market pressures and data exist in multiple systems, but there are so many roadblocks in the overall patient care process that you need something, anything--any tools that you can possibly get your hands on to make sense of all of these data that you know have available to you,” offered Rothman.
To curb this problem, many facilities turn to the use of an EDIS system to track and sync data and get rid of duplicate information. While the EDIS may not be the answer to every problem, aligning EDIS with BI can “bridge the gap between the technology and people integration,” said Rothman.
Bridging the gap
The Hospital of Central Connecticut is 100 percent computerized and adopted an empowER EDIS (Emergency Medicine Business Intelligence) in its ED five years ago. Today, Finkelstein said that the facility now has 1,000 data points on every patient.
“Why did we see the need for BI? We were data rich and information poor,” said Finkelstein.
He said that there was such high demand for the running of custom reports and patient data that the IT department could not support its needs and it was necessary to implement a form of BI that could extract data and run complex reports without interfering with the EDIS.
Prior to the IT adoption, Finkelstein said it took an average of eight to 10 hours every month to run complex reports regarding patient length of stay, patient satisfaction, coding and billing data and more.
Rather than having to pull data from four separate systems, the data are stored in one data warehouse. “BI gave me back the time to do my real job, which is to lead a department and to take care of patients,” said Finkelstein.
“With BI done correctly, a non-IT person like myself can make meaningful decisions based on the data and how it is presented,” he said. With the expanded data, Finkelstein said he can answer important questions and better see the loopholes at his facility.
“With use of the system, the ED will be 90-plus percent fixed,” he said.
According to Finkelstein, the system allows the ED to run detailed reports on emergency room volumes on certain days to render the staff schedule and run reports that identify which individual nurses and physicians receive the most patient acclaim.
Finkelstein said that not only does the system save hours of time, it also can take “multiple steps forward for the diagnosis of information to help improve patient satisfaction.”
In terms of costs, the EDIS “has basically paid for itself in improved operations and improved revenue,” he said. “The value has been enormous for the money I paid for the BI. The return on both my time and the ability to improve my department has paid off many, many times over.”
But, Finkelstein offered, for a successful, seamless system, you must have all staff on the same page. Depicting the value of the system to staff before adoption can lead to physician buy-in, he said.
“The bottom line,” said Finkelstein, “is that without BI, I would not have the time to focus on clinical issues and innovations.”
The Hospital of Central Connecticut consists of one hospital operating at two separate locations using one ED information system (EDIS)—the Bradley Memorial campus in Southington, Conn., sees 88,000 patient visits each year, while the New Britain General campus in New Britain, Conn., sees 18,000.
While most often BI is defined as software and technology that companies utilize, it holds equal importance for physicians who are constantly running ED reports, said Jonathan Rothman, MBA, principle, emergency medicine business intelligence.
While touching on the “somber mood” that exists across EDs in the U.S. today, BI, Rothman said, can help to “exploit information in a positive sense to do something cost effectively and to make change.” He said the changes pertain to anything from changes in staff to outlining and improving physician, nurse and patient outcomes.
“People are starting to consider BI as more than just as it relates to technology,” said Rothman. “It’s just as much about human interaction.”
BI today, particularly for the ED, refers to outlining quality information and using business friendly tools to provide timely, more transparent information, which is especially helpful when patient visits to the ER are on the rise.
“Once you get patients into the ED, there still is not a clean flow of the movement of those patients from the ED to an inpatient bed,” said Rothman. This is referred to as patient boarding, a significant challenge for the facility.
One problem many facilities face, including the Hospital of Central Connecticut, is that a multitude of patient data is entered into many different systems and more often than not the data do not exist in one single system.
“When you think about why institutions in healthcare need business intelligence, you have external market pressures and data exist in multiple systems, but there are so many roadblocks in the overall patient care process that you need something, anything--any tools that you can possibly get your hands on to make sense of all of these data that you know have available to you,” offered Rothman.
To curb this problem, many facilities turn to the use of an EDIS system to track and sync data and get rid of duplicate information. While the EDIS may not be the answer to every problem, aligning EDIS with BI can “bridge the gap between the technology and people integration,” said Rothman.
Bridging the gap
The Hospital of Central Connecticut is 100 percent computerized and adopted an empowER EDIS (Emergency Medicine Business Intelligence) in its ED five years ago. Today, Finkelstein said that the facility now has 1,000 data points on every patient.
“Why did we see the need for BI? We were data rich and information poor,” said Finkelstein.
He said that there was such high demand for the running of custom reports and patient data that the IT department could not support its needs and it was necessary to implement a form of BI that could extract data and run complex reports without interfering with the EDIS.
Prior to the IT adoption, Finkelstein said it took an average of eight to 10 hours every month to run complex reports regarding patient length of stay, patient satisfaction, coding and billing data and more.
Rather than having to pull data from four separate systems, the data are stored in one data warehouse. “BI gave me back the time to do my real job, which is to lead a department and to take care of patients,” said Finkelstein.
“With BI done correctly, a non-IT person like myself can make meaningful decisions based on the data and how it is presented,” he said. With the expanded data, Finkelstein said he can answer important questions and better see the loopholes at his facility.
“With use of the system, the ED will be 90-plus percent fixed,” he said.
According to Finkelstein, the system allows the ED to run detailed reports on emergency room volumes on certain days to render the staff schedule and run reports that identify which individual nurses and physicians receive the most patient acclaim.
Finkelstein said that not only does the system save hours of time, it also can take “multiple steps forward for the diagnosis of information to help improve patient satisfaction.”
In terms of costs, the EDIS “has basically paid for itself in improved operations and improved revenue,” he said. “The value has been enormous for the money I paid for the BI. The return on both my time and the ability to improve my department has paid off many, many times over.”
But, Finkelstein offered, for a successful, seamless system, you must have all staff on the same page. Depicting the value of the system to staff before adoption can lead to physician buy-in, he said.
“The bottom line,” said Finkelstein, “is that without BI, I would not have the time to focus on clinical issues and innovations.”