Telephone Excellence by Mike Mitchell

Telecom / IT Helps Hospitals Deliver Quality
By Mike Mitchell

Whose job is it to promote quality in your hospital? Does anyone look to telecom and IT for quality improvements? Now, more than ever, Telecom and IT are providing the vital technological expertise necessary in guiding the clinical staff toward quality in healthcare.

The Q.U.E.S.T. Project:
DeKalb Medical Center (Decatur, Georgia) implemented a quality improvement initiative called Q.U.E.S.T. (Quality, Uniformity, Efficiency and Safety through Technology). The goal was to improve quality by creating a standard database to reduce errors in medication and diagnosis.

A major component of Q.U.E.S.T. was implementation of Eclipsys’ Sunrise Clinical Manager, a computerized physician order entry system (CPOE). This computerized order entry system increased the speed with which doctor’s orders were issued, eliminated medication dosage errors due to illegible handwriting, and reduced transcription mistakes.

Some of the new technologies implemented included:
• Mobile workstations on each nursing unit for real-time input of doctor’s orders
• Installation of over 130 802.11g wireless access points throughout the hospital
• Multiple house telephones conveniently located inside each nursing unit for faster and more efficient communication with physicians

Technological Expertise:
The Telecom/IT team supported this system implementation by working in tandem with clinical staff to improve quality. How is your telecom team supporting the clinical quality initiatives? Are your Telecom/IT goals aligned with the corporate business goals? If you have the technological expertise to provide solutions, you might be researching applications to improve quality in the following areas identified in a HIMSS report entitled An Educational Update to the HIMSS Enterprise Information Systems Steering Committee presented in March 2007.
• Human Capital Management (payroll, benefits, training, timekeeping, etc)
• Financial and Accounting Management (A/P, A/R, budgeting, planning, cash management, etc)
• Supply Chain Management (inventory control, purchasing and receiving, planning, etc)
• Infrastructure and Security (I.T. flexibility, business agility, cost reduction, revenue growth, etc)

Patients expect competent medical care from their physicians and hospitals. What differentiates one healthcare provider from another is the quality with which competent medical care is delivered. Telecom/IT are proving their role is critical in providing the technological expertise needed to make these quality improvements.

Next month I’ll take a quality check within the Telecom department including projects, personnel and processes.

One final note, after completion of the Q.U.E.S.T. project and opening a new ‘all digital’ hospital on their third campus, DeKalbDe Medical Center was named one of the nations Top 100 Most Wired Hospitals in 2005.

-Mike