Beaufort Memorial Hospital Reports Streamlined Care Planning and Patient Flow One Month After Deploying Patient Throughput Technology

Hospital executives attribute rapid improvements to increased visibility and newfound transparency provided by MEDHOST PatientFlow HD solution

PLANO, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Beaufort Memorial Hospital, a 197-bed facility in Beaufort, S.C., reports that within one month of implementing a patient throughput solution enterprise-wide, it has already experienced more streamlined care planning and efficient patient flow. Hospital leadership credits the prompt results to a significant increase in hospital-wide visibility and transparency, made possible by the new PatientFlow HD solution from MEDHOST.

“Healing the business side of hospitals, not just clinical, is critical. This is especially important in this new paradigm of healthcare, defined by smaller budgets, mounting regulatory requirements and declining reimbursements”

“Hospitals need to get their arms around data to survive as the healthcare industry continues to transition and prepare for greater change. Most important, they need to have tools to analyze data so they can create efficiencies, and Beaufort Memorial is doing just that with MEDHOST’s PatientFlow HD solution,” said Ed Ricks, CIO of Beaufort Memorial Hospital. “We are now able to easily identify areas where we can enhance processes, which is already resulting in improved outcomes. Our staff quickly embraced PatientFlow HD and is making it part of our culture. They welcome the visibility it affords because they see the direct impact it has on how they care for patients.”

PatientFlow HD’s graphically driven and highly intuitive user interface makes current information, such as 30-day readmissions, patients exceeding their reimbursed length of stay, observation status patients, and patients occupying higher acuity beds than necessary, available at all times. Onscreen and push notifications also keep everyone involved in patient care better informed.

“Even though we’ve only had PatientFlow HD in place for a short time, nursing supervisors and managers have completely revamped morning processes and are planning each day much more quickly and effectively. They no longer need to spend precious time determining the status of patients and pending discharges because it’s all shown in the system,” said Karen Carroll, RN, CNO of Beaufort Memorial Hospital. “Our case managers and care coordinators are also heavily utilizing PatientFlow HD to manage the care of patients beyond discharge. They now have better visibility into which patients are nearing discharge and can start post-discharge care planning further upstream.”

PatientFlow HD also helps hospital executives identify and address process-management and patient-flow issues before they become problems, leading to even greater efficiency and patient satisfaction. Providers can also leverage PatientFlow HD to comply with new patient-flow requirements issued in December 2012 by The Joint Commission.

“Healing the business side of hospitals, not just clinical, is critical. This is especially important in this new paradigm of healthcare, defined by smaller budgets, mounting regulatory requirements and declining reimbursements,” said Craig Herrod, president of MEDHOST. “To date, most patient-flow decisions have been reactive, but MEDHOST is changing that with PatientFlow HD. We are helping hospitals like Beaufort Memorial generate tangible financial, workflow, patient care and operational improvements by providing greater transparency into the factors that influence patient flow.”

MEDHOST will demonstrate PatientFlow HD at the annual HIMSS tradeshow March 4-6 in booth #7013 along with Beaufort Memorial Hospital’s CIO and CNO and the CFO and CIO of Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital, located in Elkin, N.C. To schedule a demo, please email MEDHOST at [e-mail].

About MEDHOST

MEDHOST is dedicated to advancing healthcare IT by developing user-friendly software solutions that improve house-wide operations, patient flow, financial performance, and patient care, safety and satisfaction. Its intuitive, easy-to-use solutions align with end-user workflow, and that’s why clinicians, as well as executives, prefer MEDHOST over anything else. MEDHOST’s EDIS has transformed hundreds of emergency departments into models of efficiency and profitability, and versions 4.2 and 4.3 are ONC-ATCB certified by Drummond Group. MEDHOST Advanced Perioperative is a comprehensive, clinician-driven suite of applications that supports the entire continuum of surgical care, from initial consult to post-surgery discharge. OpCenter streamlines the admission of patients by breaking down communication silos and patient-flow bottlenecks between the ED and inpatient units. PatientFlow HD provides a real-time, enterprise-wide view so executives and hospital leaders can easily manage day-to-day operations, proactively identify house-wide process management and patient-flow issues, and detect financial outliers and high-impact patients. MEDHOST, headquartered in Plano, Texas, is part of HealthTech, which manages healthcare technology companies – including Healthcare Management Systems and Patient Logic – which deliver both enterprise-wide and departmental software and systems.