Improving the Patient Journey
Ensuring that each patient’s journey through the hospital system is as efficient and as safe as possible is a difficult task. Improving patient flow is a consistent problem in global health care. As demand and patient complexity increases, small inefficiencies and errors in health care delivery can result in cascades of delays.
Patient flow is not simply an administrative problem. Problems with patient flow cause hospital overcrowding resulting in sick patients being denied access to hospital services, or “access block”. Even if patients enter a hospital, overcrowding causing delays to treatments result in increased death rates and longer hospital stays.
Existing initiatives and toolkits available from globally recognised performance improvement centres such as the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, the US Institute for Healthcare Improvement, and Australia’s Clinical Excellence Commission focus heavily on manual methods of improving patient flow, relying on manual measurement and communication strategies. The lack of emphasis on the use of technology to assist in improving the management of patient flow is surprising, since manual methods only add to the administrative burden of clinical staff and reduce the time they spend with patients.
The Miya Platform provides powerful technology to support flow management:
- Real-time access to occupancy in each hospital location, length of stays for each patient
- The ability to track what care processes are causing delays
- Automatic alerting and notifications of breaches in response times
- Coordination of care teams (e.g. allied health, rehabilitation) to minimise delays due to logistic errors
- The ability to capture scores and assessments electronically to re-calculate estimated length of stays in response to the patient’s condition
- Maps and dashboards to provide a shared understanding of demand and performance
Tracking Patient Flow
Flow Tracker
Miya Flow Tracker tracks patient flow through the department. Each patient is monitored fortime to treatment and length of stay. Each delay is monitored so you can quickly see reasons for delays. Miya Flow Tracking can send alerts automatically to the appropriate unit or individual to mitigate flow problems.
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Clinical Dashboard
The Miya Clinical Dashboard is carefully designed to present risk-rated clinical information to staff quickly. The Clinical Dashboard is extensible; it can incorporate lab results, flow KPIs, patient observations, right up to complete clinical documentation for full electronic health records. It integrates with Clinical ID to provide fast log in and customisation.
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Hospital Maps
Keeping track of where your patients are and their status is made easier with the Miya Hospital Maps. Drag and drop patient icons to change bed allocations, track when patients are out of the department, and monitor which beds are ready at a glance.
Performance Monitoring
Miya captures KPI performance and risk data in real-time. Measures include occupancy, length of stay, clinical activity and costs. You can add additional metrics as. Managers and clinical heads can get a real-time view of the organisation and respond to changes as they occur, rather than months after the event. As with all parts of the Miya Platform, alerts can be attached to any data or thresholds.
Managing Patient Flow
Notifications
Messages to allied health, referrals and any other member of the care or hospital team are sent via Miya and tracked for follow up. Reminders can be escalated to ensure patient flow is not compromised. Workflow steps can be configured for each type of notification, e.g. radiology order status, transport, cleaning.
Smart Forms
Alcidion’s Smart Forms technology drives Miya Checklists and Guidelines. These interactive forms support numerous question types and sophisticated branching logic. Use Smart Forms to implement national or local best practice guidance at the point of care, health assessments, and reminder checklists. The system is designed to be fast to use, has a full audit trail, generates clinical documentation and can automate tasks such as ordering. Checklists and guidelines can be implemented at triage, registration, diagnosis, discharge, or in response to clinical conditions.
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Pathways
Miya’s pathway system allows units to define key milestones for common patient conditions, such as Community Acquired Pneumonia, Acute Coronary Syndrome, or Fractured Neck of Femur. Miya tracks each task is performed in a timely manner, and automates notifications to care team members to ensure that milestones are not forgotten. Automate tasks at each step, such as generating reminder checklists and order sets. If patients deviate from a pathway you can quickly determine if this is due to patient factors or operational problems
Avoidance
By monitoring every patient’s EHR, the Miya’s Decision Support Engine can identify avoidance opportunities and notify the right care team members to evaluate candidates for hospital alternatives. This can be as simple as identifying patients presenting with particular conditions who have had previous care coordination, or more complex involving matching care packages to potential candidates.
Alerts & Decision Support
The Miya Decision Support Engine (DSE) monitors all data flowing through the system and can trigger alerts and notifications. We call this active monitoring. Miya plays an active role in supporting clinical staff. The Miya DSE can be configured to monitor and alert for clinical and organisational risks.
