The Skylight Blog

Improving Workflow with Skylight Interactive Patient Systems Service Alerts

The Housekeeping Department at a Skylight client hospital in the Midwest was receiving complaints that food trays were not being picked up from patient rooms.  The hospital has Room Service so trays are delivered to patients at different hours. The Food Services Department didn’t have a workflow in place to know which rooms they needed to go back to in order to pick up the dirty trays. In some cases, the trays weren’t getting picked up until the next meal was delivered.   Continue reading →

Reflections from the Beryl Institute Patient Experience Conference

“Patient Experience.  Patient Engagement.  Patient Satisfaction.”  The good news is that these terms and concepts are now at the forefront of the national healthcare dialogue—seemingly now taking center-stage with public reporting and the looming threat of decreased reimbursement from CMS.  Going back nearly ten years (which in “healthcare time,” certainly rivals “Internet time”) the early adopters of patient-and-family-centric technologies and solutions were those who embraced the vision of Dr. Bridget Duffy, MD, or groups like Healing Hospitals, Planetree, and others who continue to be at the leading edge of defining the optimal patient experience.  Continue reading →

The Role of Interactive Patient Systems in Reducing Readmissions

Reducing readmissions is one of the biggest challenges hospitals face.  As mentioned in last weeks’ blog, Understanding the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), financial penalties will commence in October of this year.  Unlike VBP (Value Based Purchasing) where high performers are rewarded, readmission through the HRRP is straightforward:  you will either get penalized or not. Continue reading →

Understanding the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program

On average, about 20 percent of Medicare patients discharged from hospitals in the United States will be readmitted within 30 days.  These readmissions cost the Medicare program an estimated $12 billion a year.  Congress included the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP) in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 (ACA).  Starting in October of 2012, financial penalties from the HRRP will apply to Medicare readmissions for Heart Failure (HF), Acute Myocardial Infarction (AMI), and Pneumonia (PN).   Continue reading →

Everyone Plays a Role in Improving the Patient Experience, Even the Fish!

An improved patient experience can come in many different forms and at any moment.  One day I was at a hospital testing some changes that were recently completed to the Skylight Interactive Patient system.  As I was about to leave, I checked in at the nurses’ station and asked for permission to quickly round on a few patients to see if they needed any help or had feedback on the Skylight system in their room. Continue reading →

Designing the Patient Experience: Supporting Successful Transitions of Care

While in the hospital, patients are in the direct hands of professional caregivers.  They defer and rely on the various care partners who assist them from admission to discharge.  Outside the four walls of the hospital, patients often take on self-management roles.  Whether preparing for an elective surgery or being discharged after a health episode related to a chronic illness, patients find themselves at critical and vulnerable junctures. Continue reading →

Leveraging Interactive Patient Systems to Curb the Threat of HCAHPS Penalties

Last week there was a very relevant article for hospital management in FierceHealthcare “Hospitals underestimate threat of HCAHPS penalties”.    It is a wakeup call for any hospital that is not taking steps to improve their HCAHPS scores.   And not just steps, but systemic and sustainable changes in operations to address patient satisfaction over the long term.   The challenge clearly stated in the article is “average performers will not break even on Medicare reimbursements.”  And the situation only gets more challenging over time. Continue reading →

Online Meal Ordering: Improving the Patient Experience with the Comforts of Home

As patients become more comfortable with technology at home, they come to expect certain amenities in the hospital as well. Certainly the ability to watch TV and movies, play games and even surf the internet are becoming commonplace in the patient room and now patients are happy to order their meals through the TV as well. Continue reading →

Pain Management Workflow: Considerations of Unverified Patient Self-Assessment

“Walking the Workflow” is key to implementing any new system that affects clinical practice.   The valued advisor role of a system supplier is key to keeping hospital partners out of trouble when using interactive patient systems.   Here’s an interesting example of using a system without thinking through that workflow.

“A client recently approached me to discuss their pain management program.  She had seen a Skylight competitor presentation where they recommended using their system to encourage patients to self-assess pain levels.  Their workflow is comprised of an initial alert sent to the patient about 60 minutes after pain medication administration.  The patient could respond to that alert with their pain level using the standard 0-10 scale.  The numbered response would automatically be documented into the electronic medical record.  If the patient did not respond at all, an alert would be sent to the nurse for follow up.” Continue reading →

The Goldilocks Challenge: Is the patient room too hot? Too cold? or just right?!

Patient room temperature appears on every top 10 list of patient complaints.  Part of the challenge is that there is no single “correct” temperature setting.  Some patients like it warmer, while others like it cooler.  And often the same patient may want it warmer at one moment and cooler the next, based on medications and other factors.

At most of the hospitals I’ve dealt with, changing the temperature in a patient room is a cumbersome process:  (1) the patient pushes the nurse call button, (2) the nurse responds to the call button, (3) the nurse forwards the request to the Facilities Department, and (4) Facilities actually adjusts the temperature setting for the room.  This process occurs many, many times a day; every day of the year.

Skylight recently provided patients at a hospital client in Arizona with the ability to directly adjust their room temperature through Skylight’s CareNavigator system that runs on the patient room TV.  With just a few simple clicks on the pillow speaker pendant guided by easy-to-follow graphics on the TV, the patient can adjust the room temperature up or down by 1-3 degrees. Continue reading →