Productivity in Healthcare

How is productivity measured in Healthcare? 

Aged care provides Healthcare for a growing population, with often an intense pressure to provide a person-centered focus for those who may or may not be able to express their own needs. Providing meaningful compassionate care in such situations reinforces the need for patience while each team member is under pressure to provide more care for more people with increasingly complex needs.

Digital systems which are fit for purpose and intuitive to use, are important as essential tools at the crossroads of time-poor aged care service teams and meeting the complex and often unstable clinical needs of those in their care.

Hercules Health INSIGHTS Dashboards are receiving strong endorsement from those using them. Not only do these Dashboards reflect health status of resident cohorts across a whole service, they also reflect areas of potential clinical risk and support workforce planning. They show where and when care team members are needed to align with the fluctuations in health presentation of residents in aged residential care. 

Displaying clinical data in a way that shows clinical care needs is simply one of the tools we support our clients with to be more productive and more effective. I think back to my days nursing on the wards in acute settings, or leading care teams in aged resudential care and marvel at what we can now achieve by bringing relevant data to guide care into this series of Dashboards.

The fun is also in exploring what else we can create to support this  sector. Watch this space!!

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Privacy Officer role has changed… but is that reflected in practice?

One of the areas of administration ripe for review and development is the role of Privacy Officer / Privacy Co-ordinator. The privacy monitoring needs to include data privacy (storage, access etc) which in itself is a complex topic. 

Traditionally privacy has related to clinical documents in hard-copy form, and auditory and physical privacy, but now digital security is an additional and complex area of risk mitigation and monitoring. The education or skill set required to undertake this role also may need enhancing to meet modern methods of record keeping.

What does good look like? Is adequate ever really adequate?? 

Health Information is the most sought after by hackers for potential identity theft etc. You wouldn’t leave your house in the morning with the doors and windows wide open for easy access by anyone! Have the Users of your systems been given the relevant and appropriate user permissions to ensure access to only data they have a legal right to access? Have passwords been exposed to unauthorized users? Have access codes been deactivated for those on leave or those who no longer work for your organization?

Did you logout? Why would you leave your digital device accessible to others while you’ve left it logged in. Anyone following on entering information legitimately or not, could be entered under your login making you responsible for their notation.

Are your team members using AI to develop care plans? We are aware this is becoming common practice. I can’t help but wonder what private resident information may have been entered into an open source AI to get the person centered care plan written by AI? Have residents been made aware of and consented to your storage of their data in digital systems? 

Are your team writing the progress notes for their shift after they’ve gone home saying they didn’t have time to do ut at work? Have you instigated Multi-factor Authentication for added security?

We suggest developing the security / privacy role to look at where data is stored, who has access to it, is it held within an organisations own tenancy (ring-fenced for their eyes only), or travel out of where the data is stored on third party systems. Have you updated your education on meeting your Privacy Act and Health Information Privacy Code 2020 requirements? What are your internal audits showing? What is being reported to your clinical governance and management teams with regard to meeting your obligations to those associated with your service?

A few things to think about before you’re the subject of a privacy related complaint…

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Data informed change

Debbie, prioritizing action based on data

I had the pleasure of discussion with two senior team members at an Aged Care service yesterday about the desire for multiple change. Their change program had been making good progress but then stalled. The halt seemed to relate to the belief that all education had to happen, classroom style before a change could be commenced. 

Instead of applying a vast amount of theory, waiting to confirm it was all understood, I suggested looking at the data. Aged Care lack the luxury of time to fully educate while clinical risk is waiting to be addressed, growing by the day.

When looking at data, where is your highest risk? Is it falls? Is it unintentional weight loss? Is it dehydration? Is it behaviors of concern? Is it pressure injuries? With so many options for action, tracking and visibility via live dashboards will help drive meaningful action and support prioritizing highest risk first.

Targeted education on 2 or 3 things at most supports progress being achieved quickly. One suggestion is educate as you go. Keep viewing the related data to determine success of actions. Study, act, review is a shortened version of the well known quality repeating cycle of Plan, do, check, act..

If we work on 50 things that all need improvement simultaneously, the chance of progress and rapid risk mitigation is diluted.

Debbie, the Facility Manager from another site knows this. At Aldwins House, Promisia Group, they are making great use of the Hercules Health LIVE time dashboards to closely monitor clinical data to drive excellence in care.

With around 660 aged care services in New Zealand, every site operates differently but one thing remains true, when they use data to inform care, they reduce risk and improve health outcomes for their residents. Hercules Health dashboards are bespoke to reflect each site and their particular needs.

#agedcare #dha #digitalhealth

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Aldwins House, Promisia Group was the lucky recipient.

It was our pleasure to work with Robin Burgess, representing Ergotron NZ and Australia, to be able to make this deluxe trolley available as a hat draw prize.  Debbie the Facility Manager at Aldwins House in Christchurch said it’s put a smile on the face of their doctor as she is now able to use it for her rounds, updating notes in Hercules Health.

Debbie is also now able to view live status dashboards through Hercules Health on the move. Data visibility in live time  for all key aspects of the service, means she and her team are able to view these for alerts and care prompts whether in a meeting room, or in discussion with residents and their family members for care plan review meetings.

Thanks again to Ergotron for partnering with us to make this possible.

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Sometimes change is necessary

It’s very easy to stick with the tried and true, those things we’ve done for so long we’re comfortable with them so we keep on keeping on.

My keyboard with the letters worn off the keys is a good reminder that while I touch type and don’t need to see the letters, if someone else had to step into my role and office space, this might not help their productivity.

If we want everything to continue operating at optimal pace with no interruption to service, it’s always good to make sure our tools work for everyone. It’s also imperative there are succession plans so no function within the business is reliant on one person.

Keeping knowledge in your head doesn’t help others and is more likely to reflect a closed mindset rather than an open one.  The world of health tech is moving very quickly which doesn’t request, it requires people to collaborate and progress to continuously better ways of doing things with the latest tools available.

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New COO Appointed for HCSL

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Pacific people’s cultural safety, Entering aged care and advanced care planning – Part 2

Cultural competence – a conversation with Reverend Neti and Registered Nurse Philomena Petaia talking about supporting Pacific People in Aged Residential Care. This is being presented by Gillian Robinson, Registered Nurse, Bachelor of Nursing, Lead Auditor, and Author. She is the director of Healthcare Compliance Solutions Ltd. This presentation is intended to support the education and learning for nurses and senior care aged residential care in NZ. 

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Pacific people’s cultural safety in aged care Part 1

Cultural competence – a conversation with Reverend Neti and Registered Nurse Philomena Petaia talking about supporting Pacific People in Aged Residential Care. This is being presented by Gillian Robinson, Registered Nurse, Bachelor of Nursing, Lead Auditor, and Author. She is the director of Healthcare Compliance Solutions Ltd. This presentation is intended to support the education and learning for nurses and senior care aged residential care in NZ.

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Password Security In 2022

If your passwords are less than 8 characters long, you must change them immediately, according to a recent study from Hive Systems.

Your online security is important and this study demonstrates how long it would likely take the average hacker to crack the passwords safeguarding your most important online accounts.

Short and simple passwords can be cracked in a matter of seconds. Long and complicated ones? Trillions of years.

Password Security HCSL
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Clinical Documentation in Aged Residential Care

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