Improve Critical Care in 3 Areas by Enhancing Patient Experiences

Healthcare is facing a complex mission as it works to provide accessible, efficient and patient-centered care. And the job has never been harder. Consider these facts.

When it comes to patient experience, many recent studies show that it’s getting worse, not better.

In terms of employee experience, healthcare ranks last for worker satisfaction among 27 industries.

In the realm of facility efficiency, wasteful and unsafe workflows introduce errors, safety risks and higher costs. They also make it difficult for employees to find information and equipment. For example, technical difficulties cause the average healthcare worker to lose 3.5 hours of time per week due to inefficiencies.

There’s so much opportunity for improvement, but it can be hard to decide how or where to begin. Sometimes you have to see what’s possible before you can understand which changes your facility needs to make.

That’s why we designed our Enhancing Patient Experiences Showcase, located inside our Customer Innovation Center in Chicago.

Belden designed and built this space from the ground up, using technology to create a modern healthcare suite. The best part: This display isn’t a showcase of new technology. Instead, it shows how systems can come together on a unified network so data from every system can automatically flow from point A to point B, informing every step of the patient’s journey and the clinician’s workday.

Inside our Enhancing Patient Experiences Showcase, you can see how technology and automation can be applied in three common healthcare scenarios.

Scenario 1: Patient Consultation

Before you can offer effective and personalized care, you must first be able to gather patient information. Consultation sets the foundation for diagnosis and treatment.

Making the patient feel comfortable while enabling the clinician to focus on care, not busy work, helps both parties contribute to a productive consultation.

In our Enhancing Patient Experiences Showcase, we show healthcare leaders how this is possible through technology.

For example, when a nurse or doctor enters our modern patient room wearing a sensor-enabled RTLS badge, many things can be programmed to happen automatically to promote a safe, productive environment.

Inside the room: 

• To make reading and administering care more comfortable for both parties, PoE LED lighting can automatically adjust.
  
  
• To ensure privacy and minimize distractions, window shades automatically close.
  
  
• To make sure the patient knows who’s entering and why, information about the clinician—name, picture, credentials, etc.—appears on the patient engagement screen as they walk in.
  
  
• To make sure clinicians have the information they need for the visit, relevant patient data is displayed on the headwall monitor, whether that includes real-time vitals, lab results, recent scans, etc. 

Outside the room:

• To help family members understand why the patient’s door is closed, and to let other clinicians know what’s happening, the dome light and door display in the hallway let everyone know a clinician is inside.
  
  
• To make sure staff realize the patient is being seen, a unit bed board at the nurses’ station indicates that the consultation is currently in progress, reducing the likelihood of interruption.  

Once the consultation is over and the clinician leaves, the room automatically returns to its previous state by readjusting light levels, opening shades, turning content on the patient engagement screen back over to the patient and changing the door display and dome light to indicate that the visit is complete.

Although this is how it works in our simulated environment, the workflow is completely customizable. The technology and how it responds can be tailored to exactly what you want to happen in your own healthcare facility.

Scenario 2: Combative Patients

To keep everyone safe, it’s crucial for staff to act fast when patients become aggressive. When clinicians yell for help, however, this can agitate patients and cause more stress, which further escalates the situation.

Technology helps reduce the likelihood of problems and alerts the appropriate parties discretely without adding to an already-stressful situation.

In our Enhancing Patient Experiences Showcase, a clinician wears an RTLS badge with a small button to press if a threat is observed. This button triggers a series of events. In addition to notifying the closest members of the security and care teams, it also does the following.

Inside the room:

• For better visibility, the room lights automatically brighten. This makes it easier to identify hazards and reduces the possibility of accidents.
  
  
• For security, the window shades close so incidents can be contained.

Outside the room:

• To communicate a safety issue to people in the hallway, the hallway door display and dome light turn red.
  
  
• To garner attention, the nurse call light for the patient room turns red, starts flashing and makes noise at the nurses’ station.
  
  
• To enable security staff to see what’s happening in real-time, the closest cameras begin capturing footage.
  
  
• As mentioned above, the closest staff/security are notified via clinical communication devices.

These automated actions ensure a safer, faster response to a combative patient, making sure clinicians and patients get the help they need quickly.

Similar to the patient consultation scenario explained above, the example shared here is just one way to automate a series of events. You can tailor this workflow to align with your facility’s preferences and protocols.

Scenario 3: Code Blue

The final healthcare scenario in our Enhancing Patient Experiences Showcase is one all hospitals are familiar with: code blue.

At the bedside in our modern patient room is a code blue button. Pushing it activates a series of pre-programmed, automated responses that bring urgent assistance to the room. In addition to notifying the closest clinicians so they can get to the room as quickly as possible, other actions also take place.

Inside the room:

• To speed up critical response, the patient-engagement system announces a code-blue situation. Everyone who enters the room understands what’s happening and can act accordingly.
  
  
• To help medical staff see clearly and work quickly to assess the patient’s condition, perform procedures and locate medical equipment, the room lights automatically brighten.
  
  
• To track the patient’s condition, physical monitoring data and other pertinent patient information is displayed on the headwall monitor and sent to electronic health records in real-time.

Outside the room:

• To indicate the severity of the situation to anyone who may be nearby and able to help, the door display and dome light outside the room turn blue.
  
  
• To let clinicians and staff know what’s happening in case they can help, the unit board at the nurses’ station shows a code blue for that specific patient room. Nearby care team members also receive notification on their clinical communicating devices

Again, this is just one way to handle a code blue event. Within our Enhancing Patient Experiences Showcase, we can demonstrate other ways technology can be integrated to respond based on how your team works.

Plan Your Visit

Did you know you can explore Belden’s Enhancing Patient Experiences Showcase at our state-of-the-art Customer Innovation Center in Chicago?

Our team of experts can show you firsthand how we’re reshaping the landscape of healthcare, and how you can seamlessly integrate technologies to elevate patient satisfaction, boost staff retention and improve facility efficiency.

Learn more about our Enhancing Patient Experiences Showcase.  

Related Links:

• The 3 Big Imperatives Driving Healthcare Technology Forward
• How Healthcare Tech Automation Can Boost Clinician Morale
• A Look at Upcoming BICSI 004 Healthcare Standard Revisions