Improve Patient SatisfactionAustco nurse call and clinical workflow solutions are designed to address many of the key components of patient satisfaction
Why do patient experience surveys matter?
The global trend in healthcare is to tie patient experience survey results to funding, to reputation, reimbursement, and accreditation.
In the US, the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) is a patient satisfaction survey given to in-patients at all American hospitals. The results of the survey are publicly reported and affect the facility’s reputation and funding.
For each question on HCAHPS and similar surveys, the patient answers Never, Sometimes, Usually, or Always, and the facility only receives credit for questions answered Always.
Austco’s products directly influence patient satisfaction in several ways
After you pressed the call button, how often did you get help as soon as you wanted it?
All Austco pendants and handsets route their calls directly to the assigned caregiver. In addition to regular patient call, Austco handsets allow patients to indicate exactly what they need: bathroom assistance, food, water, housekeeping.
Combined with an RTLS system or presence button, Pulse Reports knows exactly how long the patient call was active before a caregiver arrived. In a report, you can see how long the alarm was active and also the response times. How long is it taking for staff to respond to a given room, and how long is each individual staff member taking to respond to their calls.
How often was the area around your room quiet at night?
For patient comfort and to combat alarm fatigue, Austco allows complete flexibility to handle the calls and alarms any way you like. Route calls to the correct caregiver’s mobile phone or pager; they may not make any sound at all.
All touchscreen stations have a night mode, which plays alarms at a reduced volume.
Pulse Reports will show the total number of calls within a certain timeframe, and you can track the length of active calls over time to see improvement.
How often were your room and bathroom kept clean?
Patients can indicate they need cleanup from their pillow speaker, and the call is routed directly to EVS.
Use the Duty station as a workflow device and add buttons to summon EVS, hazardous cleanup, or any necessary team. Additionally, create a speed dial VOIP button to speak directly to EVS.
In Pulse Reports, run a report on exactly how long the “EVS” or “Cleaning Needed” alarms were active per unit, floor, building, or the whole system.
How often did you get help in getting to the bathroom or in using a bedpan as soon as you wanted?
Austco pillow speakers have a bathroom assist button, and you can set any pendant or secondary button to trigger a bathroom assist as you like.
Once triggered, Pulse Reports will tell you exactly how long those calls were active before they were either cancelled or a caregiver arrived in the room.
How often did hospital staff talk with you about how much pain you had?
How often did hospital staff talk with you about how to treat your pain?
Austco pillow speakers allow patients to indicate if they are in pain. Knowing this in advance will save staff time coming to the room and then tracking down the correct person. The “Pain” call may be routed differently than a standard patient call.
In the reporting tools, set a widget to report how many pain calls are coming from individual beds, so your team can observe trends and intervene before they become serious.
How often did doctors explain things in a way you could understand?
It will help to have a nurse present when a doctor is in the room, as the nurse will invariably have to answer the follow-up questions.
Use an RTLS tag or workflow buttons to indicate when a doctor is in a patient room, and send the alert to the assigned caregiver for that room. In addition, the call type “doctor present” (for example) can turn on the over-door light so staff know at a glance where doctors and other staff are visiting with patients.
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