Grace Hospital is dedicated to delivering top-notch clinical care to patients dealing with intricate health conditions. Their goal was to enhance clinicians' ability to concentrate on direct patient care, reduce alarm fatigue, and safeguard patients' personal health information. Additionally, the hospital aimed to streamline communications across its four locations to boost efficiency and centralize functions.
Solution:
Today, HipLink presents an innovative bedside monitoring system, empowering clinicians to respond swiftly to critical alerts via their smartphones. "Integrating with various systems to create a seamless solution posed a significant design challenge. HipLink's patented technology was specifically developed to address these intricate requirements," explained Pamela LaPine, CEO of HipLink.
Tackling Complex Cases:
Grace Hospital offers a wide range of advanced services, including ventilator weaning, pulmonary rehabilitation, organ transplants, rehabilitation, and wound care. "Our focus lies in providing care for the most medically complex patients," said Raj Khanna, CEO of Grace Hospital. "By concentrating on these patients, we've become recognized experts in administering intricate treatments. This approach ensures that our nurses and clinicians can dedicate their attention to bedside care."
Overcoming Challenges:
Clinicians need to spend as much time as possible at patients' bedsides, wholly immersed in providing necessary care. This is no small feat, given the scarcity of labor and the prevalence of alarm fatigue. Alarm fatigue occurs when clinicians become desensitized to the constant stream of alerts and warnings from patient monitoring devices. Responding to every alarm, particularly without assessing their urgency, can be quite challenging. To address this, Grace Hospital established a central monitoring station, or "war room," which required around-the-clock staffing by up to five full-time clinical professionals to analyze and dispatch clinicians in response to alarms. Recognizing the need for a more cost-effective solution, Grace turned to alternative options.
Mobilizing Critical Alerts:
Consultants proposed leveraging HipLink, an exceptionally secure messaging platform configured to automatically transmit bedside monitor alarms directly to clinicians' mobile devices. This implementation allowed Grace Hospital to eliminate the need for war room staffing and reassign those nurses to direct patient care. The outcome was substantial cost savings for Grace Hospital. Raj Khanna explained, "When an alarm sounds, HipLink instantly dispatches a message to the nurses' smartphones. They receive real-time messages and can respond directly to the patient's needs without waiting for war room personnel."
Conquering Alarm Fatigue:
Now, because alarms are directly routed to nurses' smartphones, there's no constant need to listen for and respond to every beep and ring. Nurses are aware that the highest-priority red-alert alarms are delivered to their phones. From their smartphones, nurses can promptly access crucial information such as EKGs, patient oxygen levels, and apnea readings. This information enables them to swiftly assess whether a patient requires immediate attention. Raj Khanna emphasized, "HipLink has significantly enhanced patient safety. Our nurses receive alarms and can respond promptly."
Maintaining Focus on the Patient:
Crafting an environment that caters to Grace Hospital's communication needs was intricate, but HipLink offered a range of cost-effective solutions, ultimately establishing a platform that confronts these challenges head-on. With these innovative solutions in place, hospital caregivers can concentrate on their primary mission: effectively caring for medically complex patients. Given that Grace clinicians and staff are dispersed across the Cleveland area, the need for secure information sharing between locations was met, thanks to HipLink, which unified the organization, resulting in administrative and operational efficiencies.