Walker Westwood Ridge Deploys Vitals Integration and Reaps Time Savings that Lead to Care Improvements: Technology Delivered by Constant Care Technology, Medline and PCC
"We're eliminating about 5 minutes on every set of vitals we take--which translates to about 8 hours of time savings every day. Plus we are removing error and embedding accuracy. The time savings alone relieves our nursing team to focus on what's important: improved care and the opportunity to communicate, heart-to-heart, with their patients."
ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 26, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- "In our fast-paced TCU, we are admitting higher acuity patients every day—60 admissions a month with a 14 day average stay--- so vitals are vital-- the very first task upon admission. Paying attention to the changes in those vitals triggers the care plan interventions that keep our patients health intact," remarks Terri Ringhofer, Director of Nursing at Walker Methodist Westwood Ridge TCU in St.Paul, Minnesota.
Caring for the Patient instead of the Chart: "Our nursing staff just loves the Constant Care vitals integration system. We've had automated vitals monitors in the past, but with this system that partners equipment from Medline and integration by Constant Care, the machines 'talk' to our EMR, PointClickCare and make all of our workflow so much more efficient." Ringhofer comments, "Not only are we saving time and removing the frustration and error potential of manual documentation, but I also have complete confidence in the measurement and documentation accuracy and the accountability trail the Constant Care system gives me. It's so fast and easy now for the nurses to pull accurate vitals measurements directly into eMAR with the click of a button to document for medications administration."
Short-stay requires increased efficiency! "Our community handles at least 2 high acuity admissions every day so our nurses are responsible for taking more than 10 sets of vitals per shift. With the Constant Care vitals integration to PointClickCare, we're seeing a time savings that has made all the difference in the world to our team!" Ringhofer remarks. "We're eliminating about 5 minutes on every set of vitals we take which translates to about 8 hours of time savings every day. That time savings relieves our nursing team to focus on what's important: improved care and the opportunity to communicate, heart-to-heart, with their patients."
Improved Quality and Reduced Readmissions Position for the Future: Ringhofer emphasizes that "the big PLUS is the bedside alerting of out-of-range vitals and the SMART*Reports predictive analytics which give us early warning of the combinations of changes in condition that indicate a resident is in trouble---and help us prevent readmissions from conditions like sepsis and pneumonia. As we move closer to the new PDPM payment model, this technology will put us in a great position to care for our higher acuity population and to retain maximum revenue."
SOURCE Constant Care Technology
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