2008 Innovator Awards

H&HN recognizes nine organizations with two classes of awards. For the Innovator Awards, a joint project with Accenture, CHIME and McKesson Corp., a panel of 18 hospital and information technology leaders evaluated essays describing a specific IT project and named three winners and three finalists. For the Supply Chain Innovator Awards, a joint project with Materials Management in Health Care and the Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management, a panel of four materials management leaders judged essays on projects demonstrating innovation in the supply chain using IT. One winner and two finalists were named. For both awards, the essays must describe the project, provide a business objective and list key obstacles and solutions. The essays were judged on the project’s transportability and achievement of the stated business objective, creativity and uniqueness of concept, impact on the organization, scope of the solution, stage of implementation and technical creativity.

2008 Innovator Award Winners

Allegiance Health I Jackson, Mich.
www.allegiancehealth.org
Allegiance Health created an automated discharge call system to reduce readmissions using existing technology. The health system’s electronic document management system, which serves as the repository of all patient-related files, also manages workflow by sending the patient record and discharge information to the electronic workbaskets of the clinicians responsible for follow-up discharge calls. The addition of rules-based logic to the electronic document management system enabled Allegiance to specify workflows, and new rules can be created easily to extend the application. One result of the project has been a drop in the readmission rate for congestive heart failure, from 5 percent to 1.5 percent over a three-month period.

Skaggs Community Health Center I Branson, Mo.
www.skaggs.net
Skaggs Community Health Center decided to improve quality and productivity in the emergency department, but realized they couldn’t do so without real-time data. As a result, Skaggs created an electronic dashboard that presents data from five disparate systems. The color-coded dashboard provides clinicians with at-a-glance views to monitor staffing, team performance, and volume and efficiency of the ED. Cost savings are currently estimated at $90,000, and staff performance has improved as a direct result of real-time views of individual performance.

Cox Health I Springfield, Mo.
www.coxhealth.com
Utilizing existing technologies as building blocks, Cox Health developed and implemented a custom designed electronic bedboard within a four-month period. The bedboard resolved disruptive workflow and static reporting, and decreased patient wait times and inefficient communication regarding key data. Through this system, which can be viewed on mobile devices, Cox Health increased annual turns per bed and projects an additional 3,700 bed turns annually.

2008 Innovator Award Finalists

Mercy Medical Center I Cedar Rapids, Iowa
www.mercycare.org
When Mercy Medical Center decided to require e-signing and computerized documentation, the hospital discovered its physicians were unhappy with the current health information system. The hospital implemented a single sign-on physician portal with the assistance of a dedicated physician advisory group. The portal is Web- and mobile-device-accessible, interfaces with existing systems and is used by nearby competitive hospitals. Electronic signatures for transcriptions and orders have achieved full adoption since the portal’s inception.

Baylor Health Care System I Dallas
www.baylorhealth.com
Baylor Health Care System wanted to make sure clinical trials aren’t compromised by participating patients who seek care outside the trial. So it implemented a systemwide tool that notifies the clinical research team when a trial patient shows up at any location within the health system. An existing technology, the physician EMR portal, was used to develop the clinical trial patient tracker. Automatic cross-references with ADT applications are conducted upon each admission and e-mail and pager alerts are issued if a match is found.

Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center I Washington
www.washingtondc.va.gov
Challenged by the 2007 Joint Commission recommendation to standardize patient handoffs, Washington DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center volunteered to be the lead test site for a handoff tool now used throughout the VA system. The final product is a Windows application that provides an intuitive interface between the provider and the hospital information system. The handoff tool is built into the EMR toolbar, providing automated retrieval of patient information and pre-populated fields, as well as character-limited fields for user-entered text. User buy-in was secured by appointing a lead physician and early education to create a vested user group. The provider handoff tool will improve communications to ultimately decrease patient error.

2008 Supply Chain Innovator Award Winner

Texas Health Resources I Arlington, Texas
www.texashealth.org
Texas Health Resources developed a Web application that uses existing software tools to streamline its budget and capital acquisition and tracking. The application provides real-time reporting of budgeted, allocated and spent dollars; improves communication among departments; and eliminates paper processing. By implementing this solution, Texas Health Resources reduced the time between request submission and purchase by 30 percent.

2008 Supply Chain Innovator Award Finalists

Mountain States Health Alliance I Johnson City, Tenn.
www.msha.com
Concerned with patient safety and standardization of record-keeping processes, Mountain States Health Alliance sought to create an automated system to manage product recalls, alerts and advisories. The system routes new alerts automatically to appropriate staff members but also allows staff to search for products by vendor, date, documents and product. Reduced staff time for manual checks and real-time status of recalls are examples of the system’s benefits.

Harris County Hospital District I Houston
www.hchdonline.com
For the benefit of patients, clinical staff, materials management and accounts payable, Harris County Hospital District initiated a project to automate the generation, transmittal and receipt of invoices, to provide electronic payment options and to increase accuracy of available supplies and reorders. The project reduced the procure-to-pay average time from 120 to 38 days, and it eliminated manual ordering and invoice data entry.

This article 1st appeared in the July 2008 issue of HHN Magazine.

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