Innovative Solutions to Enhance the Patient and Healthcare Team's Experience

The clinical informatics (CI) department of a 23-hospital integrated health system played a vital role in planning, designing, and implementing an inpatient interactive patient care system (IPC) at its quaternary care teaching hospital to enhance patient engagement and involvement in their health care.

Purpose: The mission and goals of implementing the IPC system are to improve patient satisfaction, increase patient autonomy, engage the patient in their own health management and education, increase patient awareness of their care plan and team, initiate service requests, and provide patient access to a vast audio-visual library of health education to improve patient outcomes. The IPC technology increases accessibility, trust, satisfaction, and independence throughout a patient admission. The IPC system also offers facility details and daily schedule/goals for the day to keep the patient informed. The system provides meal ordering options, friends and family connectivity, and entertainment to enjoy during their admission.

Method: The IPC integrates with the hospital’s current electronic medical record (EMR), creating a seamless education experience tailored to the patient’s needs. Hundreds of patient education videos comprised of health issues management, surgical/non-invasive procedures, and wellness/relaxation methods were carefully chosen and vetted by clinical informatics and a contingency team of hospital clinicians. Partnering with the IPC vendor, educational videos were mapped to patient health conditions for auto-assignment and an EMR bi-directional interface was implemented to automate accurate documentation of patient education and decrease nursing documentation burden. Dietary department integration was implemented to create seamless meal ordering by patient without staff intervention. Environmental services department integration was implemented to create a direct line of communication to request room cleaning services and restocking of toiletries. Patient experience department integration was implemented to request to rate their admission experience and/or speak with a supervisor. Recognition surveys were integrated into the digital whiteboard to reward a staff member for their exceptional service. Clinical informatics developed effective training materials for clinicians and patients; vetted devices; and provided in-person training, demos, and support for all phases of production.

Result: Press Ganey survey score results continue to climb. Clinicians are supported by the new IPC system by decreasing clinician/administrative workload. Patients are utilizing the IPC to receive for education; learn their schedule and plan of care; visualize their care team; order their meals, provisions, and room services; utilize interpreter services; and enjoy entertainment. Staff and patient feedback have reported positive ease of use for devices provided.

Conclusion: Clinical informatics continues to partner with the hospital and vendor to optimize this innovative tool to develop initial and ongoing educational materials for clinicians, offering hands-on training and providing elbow-to-elbow support during all phases of go-live, with the ultimate goal of finalizing a system-wide implementation plan and process. Ongoing assessment of staff and patient feedback regarding the IPC technology continues to evolve and feedback is taken into actionable consideration to improve the staff and patient experience.