Clinical informatics team at STEGH transforms hospital’s processes

ST. THOMAS, ONT. – The team supporting digital health transformation at St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital (STEGH) was recently enhanced to meet the demands of the facility, which serves a growing population and, increasingly, more medically challenging patients.

In light of ongoing challenges, there is a growing demand for digital innovation, creative thinking, and transformative solutions.

Similar to many hospitals, digitizing solutions and thinking of new ways to meet patient care needs, creating efficiencies for clinicians, and staying current with technology has become paramount. While this work is essential, the task of attracting appropriate individuals and aligning people, processes, and technology can present its own set of challenges.

To meet these challenges, STEGH has been on a continuous journey to re-build and create a highly skilled Digital Health Team that understands the interplay of people, process and technology, while putting the needs of patients first. Ultimately, the end goal is to adopt new technology that contributes to the evolution of healthcare.

Over the last eight months, STEGH’s Digital Health Team had the opportunity to review its staffing compliment, the composition of the team, and the skill set required to support the hospital.

Additionally, this allowed the team time to step back, pause, reflect and understand the current and future state business requirements, potential gaps, opportunities, and clinical/hospital workflow.

To support this review, an in-depth assessment based on STEGH’s Lean philosophies was conducted to determine if the team was performing the right work, building digital capacity, leveraging the right tools and technology, and ultimately meeting the needs of patients and clinicians.

One of the guiding principles underpinning this change was to create a Digital Health Team that sees technology through the eyes of patients and staff.

This allowed the team to be reminded, in today’s current environment, what it is like to work at the bedside, how technology needs to be incorporated into clinical workflow, and the impact of change for clinicians and patients.

STEGH’s Digital Health Team has four clinical informatics members, all regulated healthcare professionals comprised of nursing staff with a personal stake in digital health. The harmonization of the two has been beneficial and impactful as the team has a thorough understanding of the issues faced by clinicians, clinical/hospital workflow, and pain points. They’re also able to offer solutions that benefit the care team.

To further enhance and support the relationship between the Digital Health Team and clinical staff, the Digital Health Team conducts regular rounding in clinical areas and attends huddles (another Lean principle at STEGH).

These strategies have allowed the team to provide real-time support, address issues in the moment, and explain the “why” and benefits of technology (patient safety, improved communication, transparency of information, creating standards and efficiencies).

“Creating this team definitely took some time, but the benefits are paying off,” said Jeanette Fidler, manager of Digital Health. “The organization is seeing the growth of the team, and more importantly, understanding the benefits of leveraging digital health tools. Staff are asking to digitize their existing paper processes and inquiring about how to leverage our Electronic Health Record (EHR) to support workflows. This is music to our ears.”

The EHR is a large investment for most organizations, so it is important to have a strong Digital Health Team in place to evaluate current use, identify opportunities for improvement, and implement solutions that lead to improved patient care and more efficient clinical workflows.

The work that has been completed over the last eight months is impressive considering the team consists of just four individuals. “Leveraging the hospital’s Lean principles and core values, like accountability and collaboration, has been instrumental in our success,” said Monica Olanski, VP Patient Care Services and chief information officer.

Some of the accomplishments over the last eight months include implementing Ocean in the Mental Health Program, improvements to admission and discharge processes, an electronic dashboard to support communication between Diagnostic Imaging I and the Emergency Department, specimen collection and barcode scanning, and automatic microbiology result notification to Infection Prevention and Control.

Many of these improvements have been achieved through maximizing the use of existing or previously unused functionality within the Oracle/Cerner EHR.

A review of clinical reporting found many areas of the organization were reliant on manually tracking for their metrics. The Digital Health Team converted many of these manual reports to electronic format, leveraging the data found within the EHR.

Improved analytics and reporting enabled clinicians to gain valuable insights from the data within the EHR and aided in their decision-making and process improvements.

“Embarking on this digital health transformation represents a pivotal step for St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital and our patients, said Dr. Samer Chehade, Internal Medicine and Physician Digital Lead. “Despite the inherent challenges, this transition is fundamental in enhancing patient care and operational efficiency. It’s a journey we’re committed to, and I’m thrilled to be part of this transformative team.”

As the hospital continues to grow and evolve, STEGH is now in a better position to embrace technology and implement in a timelier and more effective process.

“While there is always room for improvement, STEGH is definitely heading in the right direction, and we look forward to our continued digital and transformational journey to meet the evolving needs of our patients, staff and community,” said Olanski.