ENHANCING COMMUNICATION & IMPROVING CARE WITH CONNEXALL
ABOUT SVHCI
St. Vincent Heart Center of Indiana (SVHCI) is a dynamic group of facility and medical specialists focused on providing advanced, specialized treatment of cardiovascular disease in a warm, comfortable and caring environment. SVHCI was the first free-standing heart hospital in the Indianapolis metro area when it opened in December 2002, and is a joint venture between St.Vincent Health and the physicians of The Care Group, LLC and CorVasc MDs P.C.
In addition to a state-of-the-art medical and surgical 80-bed hospital, SVHCI is home to a 24/7 Heart Emergency Unit, The Vascular Institute, Women’s Cardiac Risk Clinic, and the Sleep Center of Indiana.
BEFORE CONNEXALL
Before Connexall was installed at SVHCI, the nurse call system did not allow for two-way communication. If a guest tried to call a nurse and the nurse was occupied, the guest’s call would be placed on hold at the call station until the nurse returned to the station. The guest would have to wait until a nurse became available before the call was acknowledged - this meant nurses would need to return to the call station between each call to identify new requests. Similar challenges faced staff communicating with each other.
The SVHCI staff hoped Connexall would improve communication between all parties, thereby increasing guest and team member satisfaction.
Since SVHCI had no previous communications integration platform, numerous challenges had to be solved quickly using innovative solutions with existing hardware. Purchasing a communications integration platform was decisively backed by COO
Mike Schroyer, as he had used it successfully at another facility and thought SVHCI would enjoy multiple benefits of using such a system.
Critical communication improvements SVHCI wanted:
- Improve communication, workflow, and overall guest care
- Improve team-member communication
- Decrease overall response times to guest requests
- Improve overall communication between Guest Care Partners (GCPs) and guests
“Overall, using Connexall has resulted in quicker responses to our guests needs and improved quality of care and satisfaction.”
- Mike Schroyer Chief Operating Officer
St. Vincent Heart Center of Indiana
THE CONNEXALL SOLUTION
As an advanced care facility, SVHCI now uses diff erent hardware solutions to provide the best care for guests. SVHCI hardware includes Draeger Patient Monitoring Systems/Telemetry, Dukane nurse call, and Cisco wireless devices. Integrating these with a common platform with Connexall helped staff to streamline processes and workflow - freeing more time for guest care. The Connexall team helped SVHCI design a solution that met their needs - yet enhanced the performance of multiple tools through integration!
Stephen Rocha, Process Leader of Clinical Engineering at SVHCI explains why Connexall offered the best solution, “Connexall was chosen for its versatility. Connexall has the capability of providing a base platform that can be configured with additional nodes for expansion in the future. It is user-friendly and has a great team to support the product. Monetary value played a very important role as well.”
Stephen noted that the Connexall installation was fairly simple, “The Connexall team explained the connection process in great detail which made the transition simpler.
CONNEXALL RESULTS SUMMARY
- Calls acknowledged within 60 seconds, reducing response time by as much as four minutes.
- Use virtually any device: no need to invest in expensive new hardware
- Receive critical updates and alarm information from monitors and telemetry - displayed on Cisco phones
Improved productivity, including:
- Staff have more time with guests
- Enhanced guest experience and satisfaction
- Improved communication between nurses and guest care partners
- Easily change communication contacts and call points for different team members and shift schedules.
“The system has enabled us to improve our overall communications between our guests and the nursing team. It has also improved our communications between the nurses and physicians. Overall, it has resulted in quicker responses to our guests needs and improved quality of care and satisfaction.”
- Mike Schroyer, Chief Operating Officer
St. Vincent Heart Center of Indiana
