AtStaff Announces that the University of Illinois Medical Center (UIC) has Selected ClairVia[R] Patient and Staff Management Software.

In the Past Year Alone, Five Academic Medical Centers in U.S. Have Selected ClairVia

DURHAM, N.C. -- AtStaff, Inc., announces today that the University of Illinois Medical Center (UIC), home to the nation's largest medical school and part of the largest health sciences center in the country, has selected AtStaff's ClairVia([R]) patient and staff management solutions to improve clinical and financial results in the delivery of patient care.

UIC, which includes a 507-bed hospital and more than 40 primary and specialty outpatient clinics, will implement three ClairVia solutions:

* ClairVia([R]) Demand Manager - Leverages patient-tracking and flow management technology to measure, monitor and predict patient-specific care demand

* ClairVia([R]) Demand-Driven Patient Assignment - Selects and assigns specific caregivers based on each patient's individual care and workload needs

* ClairVia([R]) Staff Manager - Facilitates day-to-day staffing coverage, allocation and deployment based on demand requirements

AtStaff's software contract with UIC builds on AtStaff's strong and growing partnerships with and service to America's leading academic medical centers.

In the past year alone, five prestigious academic medical centers in the U.S. -- University of Kentucky Healthcare, The Ohio State University Medical Center, Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, The University of Virginia Medical Center, and now the University of Illinois Medical Center -- have chosen to implement ClairVia software.

"As a large academic institution, we are interested in solutions that improve the quality of care and reduce the cost of care, and ClairVia is innovative, forward-looking software that addresses both critical objectives," says Janet Spunt, RN, MS, FACHE, Chief Nursing Officer, Director of Patient Care Services, and Assistant Dean, College of Nursing at UIC. "Gaining greater control over quality and cost issues is vitally important because it will allow us to improve overall healthcare value."

ClairVia Demand Manager's ability to predict patient demand 'sets it apart in the marketplace'

"What impresses us most about ClairVia software -- and what really sets it apart in the marketplace -- is its ability to predict patient demand," asserts Spunt. "By tracking actual patients entering the hospital, assessing their staffing needs according to diagnosis, and by analyzing historical trends, ClairVia Demand Manager can predict staffing needs up to two weeks ahead."

Leveraging HL-7 integration with ADT, clinical information and patient acuity systems, ClairVia Demand Manager tracks and predicts each patient's condition and movement through each phase and location of care. Because each patient is assigned at admission a progress pattern that outlines staffing requirements that may span days in the future, staffing managers can prepare and accurately schedule the most appropriate and qualified employees days in advance.

"ClairVia Demand Manager will give us the ability to avoid under-staffing and over-staffing, and take a more efficient, and well-planned approachO rather than being so reactive," Spunt explains. "About 90 percent of our costs here are in salary and wages, and, much too often, we are scrambling to find extra help at the last minute, experiencing too much overtime and premium labor costs."

"In addition, the time and effort in managing day-to-day staffing in such an inefficient manner -- involving our charge nurses, managers and staffing office -- is immense. It has taken us all away from other core activities, such as improving quality and care planning."

Accurately predicting patient volume and demand also will provide UIC, Spunt says, with greater options for quality and cost control in the deployment of supplemental labor resources.

"We hope to achieve significant cost savings, through the use of ClairVia, in better managing our flex pool, our supplemental labor pool. This includes a very large number of PRNs that requires a lot of overhead to maintain. With ClairVia, we expect to utilize these resources much more efficiently according to meeting very specific demand requirements.

"Another area where we hope to gain cost savings is in our specialty units, where we have a lot of staffing costs," reports Spunt. "We may be able to close some nursing units on the weekend if we can get documented evidence to support it. ClairVia Demand Manager will give us the data we need to better manage staffing in these areas."

ClairVia's integration with UIC's acuity system to support more efficient staffing and legislative compliance

Given that UIC has developed its own patient acuity system, it was essential that any new staffing software be able to seamlessly integrate.

"Our nurses have a strong sense of ownership and belief in the acuity system we have developed, so it was very important that it be able to integrate with ClairVia Demand Manager," Spunt says. "The two systems really match together nicely."

ClairVia Demand Manager continually incorporates patient acuity changes as patients are tracked through the healthcare enterprise. As health status change and care events occur, patients' corresponding workload requirements are adjusted up or down.

For UIC's implementation, acuity measurements will be fed into ClairVia Demand Manager through an input screen. Eventually, UIC plans to automatically transfer patient assessments from its Cerner clinical system to Demand Manager.

We expect that integrating our own acuity system with ClairVia Demand Manager will lead to more effective, accurate staffing," Spunt says. "After all, the downfall of any acuity system is a tendency of 'acuity creep.' With the ClairVia software, we will be able to conduct audits, and have some checks and balances, and measure true acuity. This will support better staffing care."

Spunt adds that the integration should also make it easier and more efficient for UIC to address the requirements of Illinois' acuity legislation "because we'll be better able to manage and predict our staffing levels."

UIC to participate in national nursing research initiative focused on improving positive patient outcomes

UIC is one of many leading healthcare organizations that have agreed to participate in a national research study sponsored by AtStaff that will examine the relationships among nurse staffing, nurse-specific characteristics and clinical and cost outcomes.

The research initiative, titled "Nursing Intensity, Nurse Characteristics and Patient Outcomes," will gather data on and analyze the nursing resources, nursing intensity, individual nurse characteristics and assignment patterns that produce the best outcomes of care. This will help pinpoint staffing and assignment decisions that lead to higher quality and safer care at lower costs.

"As an academic healthcare organization, we have a great deal of interest in being part of nursing research that can better identify the level of nursing intensity -- at the individual caregiver level -- that improves patient outcomes," Spunt emphasizes. "There is very little documented data out there that clearly reveals nursing intensity's impact on quality and safety, and analyzes what truly works best in day-to-day nursing practice."

To date, AtStaff has received letters of support for the research initiative from 62 separate AtStaff client hospitals, nine of which are academic facilities, across 18 U.S. states.

"AtStaff is acutely focused on creating innovative software and moving nursing ahead for the future," says Spunt. "AtStaff's research initiative is representative of its forward-moving direction and commitment, and we're pleased to be a part of it."

About the University of Illinois Medical Center

Situated on Chicago's Near West Side, the University of Illinois Medical Center (UIC) is part of the largest health sciences center in the country and one of only four comprehensive health science centers in the United States. It is comprised of the colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Public Health and Applied Health Sciences.

UIC is home to the nation's largest medical school, with 300 students matriculating annually, and employs more than 4,000 full- and part-time staff. Combined with academic training and research facilities, the UIC includes a 507-bed hospital and more than 40 primary and specialty outpatient clinics. There are more than 600 primary care physicians who work closely with medical center's basic scientists to expand the frontiers of medical care.

For more information, visit www.uillinoismedcenter.org/

About AtStaff, Inc.

Patient management and staff management software solutions from AtStaff serve more than 1,200 healthcare organizations, medical facilities, nursing departments and group practices.

AtStaff's ClairVia([R])solutions for the hospital enterprise marketplace improve quality of care, patient safety, patient throughput and staff satisfaction by ensuring that healthcare organizations deliver value exactly when it is needed to achieve positive patient outcomes and financial results.

For more information, visit www.clairvia.com and www.atstaff.com