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Optimising Patient admission

In healthcare, patient admission processes play a crucial role in delivering efficient and patient-centric care, but, traditional admission processes often suffer from inefficiencies, delays, and a lack of seamless coordination. CW1 helped a chain of Private Clinics in Austria to transform its process of patient admission through the optimization of processes, leveraging technology, and fostering collaboration among healthcare providers to enhance the overall patient experience and operational efficiency.

Background:

The organisation aimed to improve its patient admission process, recognizing the need to streamline workflows, reduce wait times, and enhance the quality of care from the moment a patient enters the healthcare facility. The major problem was that it took almost 15 minutes to process the patient and evaluate him on the severity of the emergency. The clinic acknowledged that an optimized patient admission process not only would improve patient satisfaction but also positively impacts operational performance, resource utilization, and revenue cycle management.

CW1 expertise started by understanding the true problems here:

1. Outdated systems that required the patient either to insert the social security card or typing manually all the information. The registration process had to be done in person as well.

2. Payment processing. The fact that the customer had to pay at the spot either in cash or card, would extend the time to process of admission, since it would require to process payments and receipts.

Solution:

1. Implementing a Digital Admission System: The first and essential step was to alleviate the "registration" process. The fact that it was being done at the spot, it would involve different steps such as (1) Identity verification, (2) EHR & PHR fetching and (3) Evaluation on the acute case. Due to the extended capabilities of CW1, we helped establish a mobile App that would allow the patient to pre-register for admission. This app was already connected to major infrastructures such as ePA and eGA, DEMIS & Corona-Warn-App, and would fetch all EHR and PHR, and at the same time integrate with the current system, so that the ID verification would require only a check on the ID at the spot. This reduced the first two steps from 15 minutes to 3 minutes, saving 12 minutes time.

2. Change payment processing to post-processing: Payment processing act would take 3 minutes from the moment the customer needed to pay, until the moment the nurse would pass a receipt. With payment pos-processing these 3 minutes disappeared, which means in total we saved 15 minutes out of the 18 minutes avg processing time. In the new system the payment would be processed automatically, as soon as the doctor releases the patient. This would send a letter (0,14€) to the Patient address and email with the payment invoice and details (while complying with the law of collecting payment afterwards). The customer could also choose to pay automatically on the app or even at a "checkout" terminal on the clinic. These procedures, saved a reduction of 1.24€ that the nurse was charging and optimised the payment process.

3. Leveraging Predictive Analytics for Capacity Planning: To optimize patient admission and ensure efficient resource allocation, the clinic also employed predictive analytics tools. These tools analyze historical data, patient demographics, and trends to forecast patient volumes and predict admission patterns. When leveraging these insights, the clinic can now proactively plan resource allocation, staffing levels, and bed availability, resulting in optimized resource utilization, reduced wait times, and enhanced operational efficiency.

Results achieved

The transformation of patient admission through the optimization of processes, technology implementation, and collaboration among clinics lead to a seamless and patient-centric experience. This transformation of an expanded digital admission system that integrates EHRs, processes payments and leverages predictive analytics, caused the clinic to improve operational efficiency, reduce wait times, and enhance the overall quality of service delivered.