Our recent interview was all about measurements. The Wooster Community Hospital Health System in Wayne County, Ohio achieved a 20% improvement in their nurses’ satisfaction with their MEDITECH EHR after a six-month effort. This video, interviewing Eric Gasser, Vice President of Information Systems and CIO, shows how statistics and survey data made that achievement possible.
Gasser says that Wooster offers high quality care and has won awards. Yet, always interested in doing better, they took up a suggestion by MEDITECH to join the KLAS Arch Collaborative. As part of that collaborative, they surveyed their clinicians. Although they were mostly happy with their jobs, nurses found documentation to be a burden.
The management further found that the number of fields on routine forms, and consequently the time and effort required to fill out the forms, had gradually increased over time. Most of the changes were made to meet regulatory requirements, and some could not be removed, but many were obsolete.
Out of 150 suggestions they received to improve workflows and requirements, they addressed 81 during their six-month upgrade. They prioritized changes based on how long it would take to address them and how much time the change would save. They removed 96 fields overall.
The changes came so fast that the managers found they had to do a better job warning people about changes and explaining the benefits of each change.
Gasser also talks about the principles of the “Wooster Way”—treat people as they want to be treated, spend money on making the patient experience better rather than on executive suites—and on the value of MEDITECH Traverse Exchange to exchange data with their HIE and other clinical institutions. They are now working on a “digital front door” where patients can do self-scheduling, pre-register for visits, and more.
Check out our interview with Wooster to learn more about their experience improving the satisfaction and efficiency of their staff.
Learn more about Wooster: https://www.woosterhospital.org/
Learn more about MEDITECH: https://ehr.meditech.com/
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