Readers Write: Labor Augmentation Technology Solutions Automating Manual Processes

Labor Augmentation Technology Solutions Automating Manual Processes
By Kelly Feist

Kelly Feist, MBA is managing director of Ascom Americas of Morrisville, NC.

General care floors represent one area of the hospital that has experienced the most change post-COVID, including increased clinical staff pressure resulting from caring for patients with higher acuity levels than in the past. This continues to be the area of care where continuous monitoring is the exception rather than the rule, and the ability for care givers to have patient contextual information at their fingertips is challenging.

As a result, the possibility of patient deterioration over time goes unrecognized until the patient becomes symptomatic, often resulting in unplanned ICU admissions, activation of rapid response teams, and sometimes other adverse events, such as codes.

By using vendor-agnostic medical device integration capabilities solutions, nursing staff can collect inputs from devices such as patient monitors, spot check monitors, laboratory information systems, EHRs, ventilators, CPAP devices, IV pumps, and more. This information is interpreted via pre-defined algorithms to determine a patient score that is regularly updated and trended. Automated alerts are generated and communicated to appropriate recipients — such as rapid response teams, charge nurses, and physicians — when a change in patient score indicates. The outcome is delivering the needed change in care prior to an adverse event occurring.

Automated, non-latent Early Warning Scoring is a vital tool in preventing unrecognized deterioration on the general patient care floors, ensuring improved clinical outcomes for the patient and financial outcomes for the hospital. There is a real and measurable ROI attached to well executed and automated early warning workflows.

Early Warning Scoring is one of several high-value workflow automations these kinds of MDI solutions can bring to bear to improve nursing efficiencies, create nursing practice safety nets, improve patient outcomes, and ultimately contribute to institutional financial goals.

COVID has had an impact on nursing capacity and on staff-to-patient ratios, resulting in the need for technology to become the force multiplier in the clinical space. There’s incredible opportunity through this technology to elevate the quality of care hospitals can provide today.