Docs expect technology to help avoid medical errors
STOCKTON, CA – St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stockton, Calif., a member of Catholic Healthcare West, has rolled out a new clinical communication and information delivery system.
The intent, hospital executives said, is to improve the coordination of care among nurses, physicians, and hospital staff, which in turn is expected to reduce medical errors caused by communication breakdown. The technology, developed by Knoxville, Tenn.-based PerfectServe, will also replace answering services and speed the delivery of lab results.
“Our old hospital communication systems were inadequate, relying heavily on overhead pages, handoffs to third-party answering services, and manual processes that required nursing staff to maintain and refer to numerous lists and faxed call schedules,” said Susan McDonald, MD, vice president of medical affairs at St. Joseph’s. “The result was inefficiency, risk and frustration caused by communication process breakdowns.”
Now, McDonald said, when nurses and physicians want to know which physician – and how – they can find out on the PerfectServe platform, which includes call schedules and contact preferences for every member of the medical staff 24/7.
“Today our clinicians experience less hassle and fewer communication errors, breakdowns and delays,” said Don Wiley, CEO at St. Joseph’s Medical Center. “Clinical calls and messages route with much greater accuracy and reliability, which helps our clinicians connect with each other and coordinate care more efficiently.”
Since implementing PerfectServe, St. Joseph’s Medical Center is processing more than 2,500 transactions each week, suggesting the hospital has achieved a critical level of process standardization. Every transaction on the new process is documented automatically.
“It has improved our ability to deliver critical lab values more quickly and documented within the 30-minute window,” said McDonald. “It also has improved handoffs with our hospitalist service, and makes hospital communication between nurses and physicians and between physicians themselves more efficient.”
For Alan Kawachugi, MD, an orthopedic surgeon, the technology has made it much easier to get in touch with colleagues.
“Communication is faster, and I have the PerfectServe iPhone app, so I don’t have to go looking for physician phone numbers.”
