Valley Health System is building a new hospital in Paramus, New Jersey – providing an opportunity to transform health care for the surrounding communities.
This is the story of the hospital – which is expected to open on April 14, 2024 – and some of the technologies that IT leaders say will help advance the delivery of advanced care.
THE PROBLEM
“Our commitment to improving the patient experience is encapsulated in our initiative called Transforming Tomorrow,” said Eric Carey, vice president and CIO at Valley Health System.
“This includes a video series designed to educate both staff and the community about our transformative efforts, benefitting both patients and staff. Our strategic goal is to improve the current quality and experience of patient care through the use of healthcare technology.
“The intended patient experience includes offering a comprehensive range of solutions, giving patients more control over their environment, involving family and guests in the healing process, minimizing the need to leave the patient room and creating an overall personalized, more comfortable atmosphere is created,” he says. continued.
Patients have control over the room temperature, lighting and sun blinds via a cushion speaker. While seemingly simple, these environmental controls are often unavailable to patients, leading to frequent triggers of nurse call buttons, causing frustration and distracting staff from direct patient care, he noted.
For example, allowing patients to adjust room temperature via a footwall monitor that displays the current temperature can prevent unnecessary interventions, promoting collaboration between patients and staff.
“A central focal point of the patient experience, the 75-inch footwall monitor will display clinical information, educational content, care details and entertainment options, and allow physicians to share diagnostic images,” Carey explained. “This ensures that patients are informed and entertained, reducing stress during the recovery process.
“So will the footwall Leverage real-time location system (RTLS) badges worn by healthcare providers, displaying the images and roles of incoming staff,” he continued. “This helps patients recall interactions, answer frequently asked questions about the presence of specific staff members and improving the overall patient experience.”
Additional technology features include an enhanced artificial intelligence system to prevent patient falls and an accompanying tablet for online activities, including video calls.
In patient rooms, dual-sided nurse servers with supply, medication and linen areas accessible from the hallway streamline operations while maintaining security through proximity card access. This minimizes disruptions to the patient’s sleep cycles and privacy.
“Efficient integration is essential as it ensures staff can effortlessly keep all systems up to date.”
Eric Carey, Valley Health System
Recognizing the crucial role of family and friends, each room features a dedicated family and guest zone with folding furniture, power sockets and charging sockets. This facilitates patient comfort and support, reducing staff involvement in non-critical issues.
“To improve infection control, we have implemented RTLS at the in-room sinks to track handwashing,” Carey said. “In addition, we have replaced the curtain pulls with sealed wall and interior blinds, which aids infection control and provides more work space in patient rooms.”
PROPOSAL
The main goals and future benefits of the technology implementations are:
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Improve the patient experience
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Reduce stress for patients
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Improve quality of care and the healing cycle
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Provide environmental controls to reduce patient frustration and increase staff time for clinical work
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Increase patient safety (reduce patient falls, focus on infection control, improve communication between patients and healthcare providers)
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Improve collaboration with family, friends and others who participate in the patient care process
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Provide patients with up-to-date information so they don’t have to worry about their status
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Eliminate interruptions in the patient room
MEETING THE CHALLENGE
All data input is considered from a single source.
“For example, when data is entered into our Meditech EHR is distributed to all downstream systems, eliminating the need for duplicate data entry,” Carey noted. ‘When a nurse documents something, it is therefore seamlessly transferred to the footwall, the digital door sign, the nurse call system and the enhanced intelligence. reduction system, smartphone system for doctors, etc.
“At Valley we have extensive experience with integration, making avoiding additional work a standard model,” he continued. “We use direct integration, application programming interfaces, background integrations and several other technologies to facilitate the seamless transfer of data between systems.”
This integration also extends to building management systems (BMS) for environmental controls.
“Efficient integration is essential as it ensures staff can effortlessly keep all systems up to date,” he added.
ADVICE FOR OTHERS
Carey’s advice for his colleagues considering similar technology implementations includes:
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Involve all levels of the organization, from frontline staff to top leadership
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Involve multiple industry experts in all areas
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Involve patient advocacy teams
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Build a testing lab and require suppliers to provide testing equipment to test integration, functionality and features before signing contracts
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Continually engage employees and leaders to ensure design principles are met.
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Plan, test, refine, repeat
“And make plans for the future, not just for the first day of opening,” Carey added. “An example of future-proof technology is the installation of a network patch panel in each patient room, which eliminates the need for years of re-laying cables. This also applies to spare parts, which have already proven their worth before our official opening.
“Recognizing that a multi-year project introduces new needs, the spare parts allowed us to seamlessly integrate additional technology without the hassle of running more cables,” he continued. “Additionally, when technology in a room is moved or replaced, a new patch cable can be effortlessly routed from the panel to the desired location.”
This foresight has resulted in millions of dollars in savings as staff installed 20 to 24 cables per patient room during the initial infrastructure construction, when all walls and ceilings were open and free of obstructions. This cost-effective approach will continue to deliver significant savings over the years, he concluded.
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