Catholic Health Initiatives Optimizes Nursing Care

KANSAS CITY, Mo., July 26, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), the nation's third-largest faith-based health care system, has improved patient-satisfaction scores and enhanced nursing-care coverage through workforce and operations solutions from Cerner, including the Cerner Clairvia ^™ suite.

A team representing fourteen participating CHI hospitals has worked since early 2010 to analyze the workflow of care-management processes as the first important step in improving the allocation of precious resources – including the time nurses spend with patients.

"We are optimizing every moment of care delivery and seeing higher levels of patient and staff satisfaction with Care Value System, the internal name for Cerner Clairvia ," said Barbara Caspers, CHI's vice president of nursing operations and acute-care practice.

The efficiency of nurses is critical to ensuring patient safety, reducing costs and heightening patient satisfaction. Studies suggest that elements of the current hospital work environment contribute to inefficiencies and stress for hospital nurses, limiting the time they can spend on direct patient care. In fact, the Institute of Medicine cites in a 2012 publication that hospital nurses spend only about 30 percent of their time on direct patient care.

"Our goal was to implement standardized, team-centric processes supported by real-time, patient-specific progress data on the quality of care, costs and outcomes," said Caspers. "We have achieved that goal."

The results show significant improvements in patient and staff satisfaction:

• Significant increase in patient satisfaction (HCAHPS) scores for discharge information within the first month of starting the process;
• Savings of nearly $1.5 million from reduced overtime, and $3 million from reduced length of stay;
• Evidence-based acuity system tied to clinical documentation for efficient and effective nursing care coverage.

"We have achieved substantial improvements in our patients' clinical readiness for discharge, as measured by HCAHPS responses," Caspers added. "In addition, premium nursing labor cost has been consistently declining across implemented facilities."

CHI's collaboration with Cerner Clairvia was highlighted in the spring 2013 edition of the Nursing Administration Quarterly . Additionally, Caspers was honored at the American Organization of Nurse Executives (AONE) conference in March with the 2013 AONE Innovation in Technology Award.

Cerner Clairvia supports care teams across the continuum by providing the information and resources needed for transitioning patients to their next level of care.

About Cerner

Cerner is contributing to the systemic change of health and care delivery. For more than 30 years Cerner has been executing its vision to make health care safer and more efficient. We started with the foundation of digitizing paper processes and now offer the most comprehensive array of information software, professional services, medical device integration, remote hosting and employer health and wellness services. Cerner systems are used by everyone from individual consumers, to single-doctor practices, hospitals, employers and entire countries. Taking what we've learned over more than three decades, Cerner is building on the knowledge that is in the system to support evidence-based clinical decisions, prevent medical errors and empower patients in their care.

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About CHI

Catholic Health Initiatives is a national nonprofit health system with headquarters in Englewood, Colo.  The faith-based system operates in 18 states and includes 86 hospitals; 40 long-term care, assisted- and residential-living facilities; two academic medical centers; two community health-services organizations; two accredited nursing colleges; and home health agencies. CHI is the nation's third-largest faith-based health system, with annual operating revenues of more than $12 billion and approximately 85,500 employees. In fiscal year 2012, CHI provided more than $715 million in charity care and community benefit, including services for the poor, free clinics, education and research. For more information, visit www.catholichealthinit.org .

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