Attack healthcare inefficiencies with data

by Lynn McVey I'm waiting in the Fargo, N.D, airport waiting to fly back to New Jersey. I had both the honor and the pleasure to speak at the Intelligent Insites 2013 Build conference. Intelligent Insites is a very passionate team of data scientists, marketers, entrepreneurs and IT developers who want to use unbiased, chronic/constant data collections to deliver operational intelligence to fix this healthcare mess. Their hunger for harsh improvement was infectious. For two days I listened to mavericks who attack problems with data, data and more data. One problem is that hospitals have 30 percent more devices, equipment and supplies than they use. We all know how that happens. Because hospitals are run using multiple departments in silos, hoarders are rampant. As a prior radiology technologist, I was guilty of hoarding the extra wide tape in secret places. Nurses, transporters, assistants and technologists are infamous for hiding stretchers and wheelchairs where no outsider can find them. Whenever I use an empty patient room's bathroom in my own hospital, I look behind the shower curtain. Inevitably, there is a heater, or a suction machine, or a folded wheelchair. Nobody can deny this happens in every hospital in every state. The conference highlighted technology that tags equipment, devices and supplies with trackers so the hospital employee can locate whatever they need quickly. As one speaker said, the nurse needs "a" stretcher, not "their" stretcher. A hospital ...
Source: hospital impact - Category: Health Managers Authors: Source Type: blogs