The Alfred I. duPont Hospital For Children Selects ClairVia To Support Its Organizational Focus On Quality Patient Care, And Ensure Nurse Satisfaction And Operational Efficiency
San Diego - The Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, a 180-bed children's hospital near Wilmington, Del., has selected ClairVia demand management software to support its organizational focus on quality patient care, and ensure a high level of nurse satisfaction and operational efficiency.
The hospital is a division of Nemours, which operates one of the nation's largest health systems devoted to pediatric patient care, teaching and research.
"In an organization as complex as the Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children, it is extremely important to be able to quickly deploy a variety of staffing options with precision, predictability and flexibility," says Connie Trusko, director of nursing projects at the hospital. "Providing the safest possible care for our patients was the number one motivator for moving to an automated scheduling system."
ClairVia is a patient-focused staffing system because it allocates and deploys healthcare staff based on measured patient care needs, matching the right staffing skills and credentials to meet each specialty-care requirement. The software integrates data from various sources to anticipate patient volume, better predict patient demand and adhere to proper staffing ratios. Customizable dashboards help monitor and measure organizational effectiveness across a range of operational, quality care and patient safety metrics.
"ClairVia was selected because it offers the functionality we were looking for, along with the ability to interface with several of our existing systems," Trusko explains. "It supports our patient safety goals through its tracking and monitoring features. It offers customized manager and employee dashboards, excellent report capability and a variety of financial reports. It provides the nursing staff with individualized displays that include their monthly schedules, messages from their nurse managers and other essential information."
She says that the hospital expects the software to support three specific project goals targeted in the areas of quality of care, nurse satisfaction and efficiency.
"We expect that quality of patient care and safety will be improved by using such a proactive staff scheduling and management system, which will provide accurate schedules. These schedules will be based not only on the number of patients in an area but also on each patient's acuity. At the same time, it will provide nursing leadership with real-time productivity reports so they will be able to make data-driven decisions.
"The software's Web-based, self-scheduling capabilities will address nurse satisfaction by allowing nurses some control over their demanding work schedules," she continues. "And the system will improve efficiency by decreasing our dependence on manual reports and scheduling processes."
Trusko says that the hospital is already working on new and innovative ways to leverage ClairVia in its overarching objective to improve quality care.
"Our facility currently uses Midas, an electronic quality system that stores patient outcome data," Trusko reports. "We plan to build an interface between Midas and ClairVia. Combining these data sources will allow us to produce quality information that includes details from different aspects of care. This data will give more meaning and depth to our quality-improvement activities."
While the interface will initially integrate only nursing, it will include information from other departments, such as pharmacy and respiratory care, when it is fully implemented.
In addition to being impressed by the capabilities of the ClairVia product, Trusko says that nursing leaders at The Alfred I. duPont Hospital have been pleased by the customer-focused approach of the AtStaff company.
"We expected the AtStaff consultants to be exceptionally knowledgeable about their system, but we were delighted to find them easy to work with as well," emphasizes Trusko. "Our interactions with a ClairVia reference call facility provided us with first-hand experience with their organizational commitment to customer satisfaction.
"And during the beginning stages of implementation, we've found the AtStaff application managers to be knowledgeable, helpful, effective and supportive. We're looking forward to our continued relationship, and working together to bring ClairVia to Nemours."
SOURCE: AtStaff