Capacity management is more than avoiding overcrowding and reducing wait times: It's about efficiency. Knowing where staff, patients and devices are and how they move through the facility can help hospitals manage their resources more effectively, thus avoiding waste, saving costs and treating more patients. Dennis Morabito, senior manager of marketing communications at TeleTracking Technologies, explains how hospitals can optimize their capacity through data capture and analysis.
"There are no long-lasting manual options for improving patient flow."
Mr. Morabito says that while manual processes may help in the short-term, they alone cannot solve capacity issues for the long term. Instead, hospitals need to combine technology and human action to create sustainable solutions. "Six Sigma and Lean can fix process problems but don't provide the data or tools needed to analyze the ongoing success or failure of these process-improvement projects," he says. "Without the benefit of consistent data capture and performance reporting, there is no reliable way to measure how those changes improve flow over time. Usually, the result is a downward curve of regression." Automated systems that track data over time allow hospitals to identify trends and determine whether interventions were successful.
"Real-time capacity management creates a digital nervous system that allows companies to 'sense' their organizational functions."
Real-time management provides hospitals with real-time data on a single platform so they can monitor changes as they occur and act immediately to prevent or solve problems. Real-time data that can help hospitals manage capacity more efficiently include the location and volume of patients, staff and supplies. For example, the number of patients in a certain unit can tell physicians how many patients need to be discharged to be able to admit more, and patient volume data separated by unit can reveal where availability capacity is within the hospital. Successful real-time capacity management requires patient flow automation, real-time location systems and automated business intelligence, according to Mr. Morabito. The first two tools capture data, while the last tool analyzes the data to convert it into usable information.
"It is with this engine of change that hospitals can place themselves ahead of the game."
Real-time data and automated data analysis give hospital leaders the opportunity to implement changes that can test and improve specific workflow processes quickly and effectively. "By becoming smarter — by using information in real time — they can increase patient throughput and revenue while maintaining high quality, preparing them for the standards of this new era of healthcare," Mr. Morabito says. Business analytics software can turn raw data into valuable information, such as the location of potential bottlenecks, the root causes of wait times and the location of infected patients and exposed medical equipment. "Real-time capacity management allows hospitals to turn data into the useful, actionable intelligence that's needed for transformational change," he says.
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"There are no long-lasting manual options for improving patient flow."
Mr. Morabito says that while manual processes may help in the short-term, they alone cannot solve capacity issues for the long term. Instead, hospitals need to combine technology and human action to create sustainable solutions. "Six Sigma and Lean can fix process problems but don't provide the data or tools needed to analyze the ongoing success or failure of these process-improvement projects," he says. "Without the benefit of consistent data capture and performance reporting, there is no reliable way to measure how those changes improve flow over time. Usually, the result is a downward curve of regression." Automated systems that track data over time allow hospitals to identify trends and determine whether interventions were successful.
"Real-time capacity management creates a digital nervous system that allows companies to 'sense' their organizational functions."
Real-time management provides hospitals with real-time data on a single platform so they can monitor changes as they occur and act immediately to prevent or solve problems. Real-time data that can help hospitals manage capacity more efficiently include the location and volume of patients, staff and supplies. For example, the number of patients in a certain unit can tell physicians how many patients need to be discharged to be able to admit more, and patient volume data separated by unit can reveal where availability capacity is within the hospital. Successful real-time capacity management requires patient flow automation, real-time location systems and automated business intelligence, according to Mr. Morabito. The first two tools capture data, while the last tool analyzes the data to convert it into usable information.
"It is with this engine of change that hospitals can place themselves ahead of the game."
Real-time data and automated data analysis give hospital leaders the opportunity to implement changes that can test and improve specific workflow processes quickly and effectively. "By becoming smarter — by using information in real time — they can increase patient throughput and revenue while maintaining high quality, preparing them for the standards of this new era of healthcare," Mr. Morabito says. Business analytics software can turn raw data into valuable information, such as the location of potential bottlenecks, the root causes of wait times and the location of infected patients and exposed medical equipment. "Real-time capacity management allows hospitals to turn data into the useful, actionable intelligence that's needed for transformational change," he says.
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