It has always been imperative for hospitals and health systems to provide a high-quality patient experience, but now that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is tying reimbursements to HCAHPS scores, it's becoming a financial priority, as well.

Through the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, patients rate their inpatient stay in 27 categories, ranging from communication with doctors and nurses to pain management to facility cleanliness and quietness. Based in part on these scores, hospitals can either lose or gain up to 1.5% of their Medicare payments in a given fiscal year.

With a growing amount of revenue at stake, hospital leaders are looking for strategies to improve the patient experience and boost their HCAHPS scores. Below are several technology solutions that can have a direct, positive impact on area such as nurse & doctor communication, responsiveness of hospital staff, and workflow improvements that benefit the overall quality of patient satisfaction.

Advanced Features & Integrations for Nurse Call 

Nurse call systems are often viewed as a patient to caretaker communication technology. But modern nurse call systems should ultimately serve as a workflow solution for the clinical staff as well. Jeron Nurse Call offers an integrated mobile application called notify that sends push notifications to appropriate staff members that also allow them to confirm the call has been received and that they are on the way, as well as answer the call and communicate via the two-way audio of the nurse call.

Nurse call terminals can now feature full video touch screen displays with several different touch screen pages that are customizable based on workflow and process needs. Well still maintaining the common buttons code blue, staff emergency, code pink, and others, you can also add the buttons for clinical staff rounding or pre and post-op checklists.

By leveraging your nurse call technology to track more of your processes and workflow, this could provide you with the data you need to  improve staff communication, response times, and patient satisfaction, all of which should ultimately have an impact on your scores and the amount of patience your facility can provide care for at a given time.

Patient & Nurse Smartboards

Healthcare facilities can finally let their patient room whiteboard markers dry up! The traditional dry erase whiteboard information and caretaker tool has finally gone digital; and it also does so much more than just tell you your nurse's name and what time to next take medication. Our Acute Care Engagement Solution from Vizibli brings together the three main groups of people involved when someone is admitted to an acute care facility: the staff, the patient, and the patient’s friends and family. Each of these groups has a stake in the outcome and the same goal: a positive outcome for the patient.

A virtual patient report is a fully customizable and integrated patient data and communication tool for the clinical staff, the patients, and their visitors. These displays work with your existing software and technology systems to pull all of that information onto a single, redundant integration environment that brings together data from clinical systems (EHR, Nurse Call, RTLS, Staff Assignment, PACS/DICOM, Education Providers, Food and Nutrition Services, Hospitality, Security, etc.), processes that data and presents it visually and interactively, to facility staff, patients, patient’s friends & family and other public visitors in real-time.

RTLS For Asset Tracking & Staff 

Real-time Locating System (RTLS) is not necessarily a new technology for hospitals but it is certainly being used in more creative ways than ever before. 

Asset Tracking: Hospitals use a wide variety of equipment, including wheelchairs, infusion pumps, and vital sign monitors. Keeping track of this equipment can be a challenging task, but with RTLS, hospital staff can easily locate and manage equipment, saving time and increasing efficiency.

Patient Tracking: RTLS can also be used to track the movement of patients, which can be especially helpful in emergency situations or when patients are at high risk of wandering off.

Staff Duress: While national headlines highlight the worst situations, smaller incidents of verbal and physical abuse happen every day in hospitals across the nation. Midmark RTLS On-Premises Staff Duress helps facilities adhere to safety guidelines for workplace violence prevention established by The Joint Commission and OSHA. Adding a mobile panic button to your staff RTLS badges is a helpful way to offer employees additional peace of mind.

Infection Control & Contact Tracing: RTLS can help hospitals maintain infection control by tracking the movement of staff and patients. If a patient is diagnosed with an infectious disease, hospital staff can quickly identify any other patients or staff members who may have come into contact with the patient and take appropriate measures to prevent the spread of the disease.

Nurse Call Automation & Workflow Optimization: By tracking the movement of patients and staff, RTLS can help hospitals improve overall staffing efficiency. Your RTLS solution can also integrate with your Nurse Call System to reduce wasted time searching for staff and automate workflows when entering and leaving rooms. Providing a hands-free way of interacting with the Nurse Call system also means less changing and wasting of PPE when moving in and out of different spaces.

EHR Integrated Remote Patient Care Monitoring

Epic Systems is one of the largest global providers of health information technology and EHR (Electronic Health Record) to hospitals, health systems and other type of medical facilities. The Epic EHR software is designed to help healthcare facilities handle the day-to-day clinical operations and management of patient records and enhance patient care. 

Chimera video technology partner Hanwha Vision has integrated its intelligent IP cameras with Epic’s remote sitting video platform. Thanks to this integration, hospitals will be able to enable 24/7 centralized patient monitoring and conduct remote observation of high-risk patient rooms, acute care patients and specialized units.

The integration also includes two-way real-time audio and communication from the remote sitter platform workstation to the patient room. The speaker and microphone will be ceiling-mounted in each room and connected to the remote sitter platform. This will give the hospital the ability to quickly give audible notifications and instructions to the patient in bed from the remote sitter platform.

Hospitals can also configure the remote sitter system to be used with a video mobile cart unit with a Hanwha camera, speaker and microphone and other features added as needed. 

Refrigeration Monitoring 

Automated temperature monitoring systems use advanced, yet easy-to-deploy sensors that can provide accurate and reliable temperature readings and alerts in real time. Many regulatory agencies require hospitals to monitor and document temperature readings for certain areas, such as medication storage areas, refrigerators, and freezers. Conducting this process manually is not only time consuming but can often lead to inaccuracies from human errors. A monitored system can also positively impact your bottom line. Irregularities can indicate inefficient energy usage or potentially faulty equipment that could result in product losses.  

Visitor management 

Still using a manual log book to check in your visitors? Consider the benefits of enhancing your guest check-in process with a fast, easy to use, paperless, safe and secure visitor experience. 

Visitors can be pre registered and then scan a QR code or ID card for a touchless check-in experience. Security administrators can utilize integrated software to send alerts to all visitors and employees in the facility during an emergency via SMS, email notifications, or an overhead paging system. 

Real-time reports include data on pre-registered visitors, new employees list, high risk watch list, previously visited visitors, and more.