Bayshore Community Health Care Services: for implementation of access management technology that allowed the hospital's radiology department to increase the number of procedures performed monthly by 24 percent. (What Works Awards 1st Place).Bayshore Community Health Services health services Managed care The benefits covered under a health contract is a network of specialized services that includes Bayshore Community Hospital Bayshore Community Hospital is a 225-bed acute care hospital located on a 37-acre campus in Holmdel Township, New Jersey, United States. Its diverse array of quality services include Cardiac Catheterization, Diagnostic Imaging, Medical/Surgical, Behavioral Health, Emergency, Laboratory , a 225-bed acute care hospital in Holmdel, NJ. Two years ago, the hospital felt its radiology radiology, branch of medicine specializing in the use of X rays, gamma rays, radioactive isotopes, and other forms of radiation in the diagnosis and treatment of disease. department impressively represented the organization's commitment to and investment in state-of-the-art equipment--yet it was impaired by a manual scheduling system. Up to 10 staff members answered phones to schedule appointments for ultrasound, C.T. scans, MRIs and nuclear medicine appointments, but with paper appointment books, still only one patient at a time could be scheduled. Staff scheduled every procedure for an hour's duration, even though most took only 30 minutes, because in a manual environment, they were forced to accommodate pre-procedure and during-procedure wait times by scheduling additional time into each appointment period. Patients and referring physician offices were often kept waiting "on hold," so referring physicians continued to send patients to the radiology department without appointments, expecting them to wait. Of course, patient satisfaction suffered. In 2000, as part of its e-business initiative, Bayshore Community Hospital began exploring ways to use the Internet more effectively in day-to-day operations and to optimize its radiology scheduling. About the same time, the hospital was approached by scheduling.com, offering access management technology on an application service provider (ASP) basis, and decided to implement it for C.T. scan, diagnostistic X-ray, MRI 1. (application) MRI - Magnetic Resonance Imaging. 2. MRI - Measurement Requirements and Interface. , nuclear medicine and ultrasound procedure scheduling. Achieving Results Implementation took four months. Patient registration sent registration transactions to scheduling.com. Interface traffic came through a Cloverleaf interface engine secure through a Netscreen VPN (Virtual Private Network) A private network that is configured within a public network (a carrier's network or the Internet) in order to take advantage of the economies of scale and management facilities of large networks. to scheduling.com's Neon engine Neon Engine is a game engine developed by Codemasters and Sony Computer Entertainment. Games using the Neon Engine
By go-live, a total of three end-users were scheduling appointments using six electronic appointment books. Staff found the system extremely easy to use. One member of the management team was even able to logon See login. 1. (jargon) logon - login. 2. (networking) logon - In ACF/VTAM, an unformatted session-initiation request for a session between two logical units. and schedule a patient appointment during off-hours, never having used the system before. In the first four months of utilization, the radiology department increased the number of procedures performed per month by a total of 24 percent as follows: nuclear medicine, 8 percent; ultrasound, 60 percent; C.T. scan, 17 percent; MRI, 3 percent. The increased four-month volume produced an additional $36,000 in incremental Additional or increased growth, bulk, quantity, number, or value; enlarged. Incremental cost is additional or increased cost of an item or service apart from its actual cost. revenue, and the hospital projected an additional $100,000 per year as a result of the increased efficiency. Also significant, the department reduced the wait time from the scheduling phone call to appointment day from an average of two or three weeks down to just two or three days, and sometimes less. Updated Results Linda Woods, vice president of information services See Information Systems. for Bayshore Community Health Care, confirms that the results demonstrated during the technology's first four months of operation sustained over the course of its first year and beyond. Increase in procedures per month? Accurate. Increase in incremental revenue to the hospital? Accurate. Continued staff satisfaction and decreased wait times for patients to be scheduled? Again, all accurate, she says. Perhaps one of the most telling aspects of IT success for a healthcare organization implementing new technology is when the organization predicts, in the beginning, that it will expand utilization of the technology in the future. Woods says that Bayshore appreciates an ASP platform because expansion is possible without the usual start-up fees and capital hardware investment. Bayshore recently added automated access management to the cardiology cardiology Medical specialty dealing with heart diseases and disorders. It began with the 1749 publication by Jean Baptiste de Sénac of contemporary knowledge of the heart. Diagnostic methods improved in the 19th century, and in 1905 the electrocardiograph was invented. department through scheduling.com. SOURCE Linda Woods Vice President, Information Services Bayshore Community Health Care Services Holmdel, NJ, Iwoods@bchs.com PRODUCT/COMPANY scheduling.com www.scheduling.com Originally printed as "Picture Perfect Solution," HMT, August 2001. |
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