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INDUSTRY: Healthcare
PRODUCTS:
- NetPage PC Paging System
- Butler II Room-to-Room Paging System
CLIENT PROFILE
Bayshore Family Practice Center
Located in Houston, TX, Bayshore Family Practice Center originated as a small husband and wife physician practice, and now has been providing care and serving the community for over 30 years. Currently the largest primary care practice in southeast Harris County, the medical staff includes 5 physicians, and 4 physician extender, and 43 additional staff members. Bayshore Family Practice Center’s goal is always to keep their patients first, in care, customer service, compassion, and quality, while providing excellent service.
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CHALLENGE
Bayshore Family Practice Center (BFPC) was using a flag system to notify staff as they passed by the treatment exam rooms. According to Donna Jones, COO at Bayshore Family Practice Center, flags were being overlooked, were not always cleared immediately following a patient’s treatment, and did not prevent the use of overhead messaging. Staff could not move forward with another patient until the flag was cleared, causing patient flow issues. The flag system was not very effective nor did it allow the productive use of staff time.
BFPC recently moved into a smaller location (from 15,000 sq. ft. with 35 exam rooms to 9000 sq ft. with 18 exam rooms), and were concerned with the need to build an equal number of treatment/exam rooms as their previous facility, in order to support patient volume and manage patient flow.
SOLUTION
Bayshore Family Practice Center chose LRS’ Netpage PC staff paging solution along with the Butler II one-touch room-to-room staff paging system to improve staff productivity, communication, and patient flow.
System Components:
- 1 Butler II Software Kit
- 30 LRS Alphanumeric Pagers
- 18 Butler II Five Button Transmitters
- 1 NetPage Software for PC
- 1 T74C232 Transmitter
Butler II:
Eighteen Butler II push-button transmitters were mounted outside individual exam rooms, away from tampering by patients, and allowing easy access for nurses and physicians to use the system to instantly send a message. Each one of the 5 buttons on the Butler II was preprogrammed with a different message that when pressed, sends the message to a staff member’s alphanumeric pager who’s assigned to that room. Once a message is received and upon completion of the task, staff are required to acknowledge the receipt by resetting the system at the transmitter that the message was sent from.
Sample Messages:
Button 1- EKG NEEDED, Button 2- INJECTION, Button 3- NEBULIZER TREATMENT NECESSARY, Button 4- LABS NEEDED, Button 5- ASSISTANCE NEEDED
NetPage:
The NetPage software was installed on every computer in the office, and staff member names were programmed into the system along with an assigned pager number. Each staff member was equipped with an LRS staff alphanumeric pager. As staff members need to contact one another, from their PC, they select the person’s name, a desired preprogrammed message, and send the page to the staff member’s alphanumeric pager.
RESULTS
Netpage – Improved Staff Productivity and HIPAA Compliance
Netpage has allowed staff to be notified wherever they are, and has eliminated the use of overhead paging. According to Jones, “The silent [encrypted] paging provides compliance to HIPAA’s privacy of notifications regulation, as well as, providers are not interrupted unnecessarily.” The system has helped keep providers organized, improving staff response times with instant communication and detailed messaging. “The staff and providers are better prepared, on time, and even more professional, and the patients love the quiet professional surrounding,” adds Jones.
Butler II – Increased Staff Efficiency and Reduced Labor Costs
With the smaller space, BFPC anticipated the need to invest in more real estate in order to support operations. However, with the efficiency experienced from using the Butler II system, BFPC did not have to build more treatment exam rooms.
The system allows physicians and nurses to immediately call for assistance or make requests without having to leave the room, thus speeding up processes. According to Jones, “We’ve been able to decrease our square footage, and even exceed our patient numbers by 50%.” In addition to that, the center has been able to reduce labor costs - reducing the number of staff by 4 employees. Although reducing staff was not a goal, the one-touch, staff-paging solution has improved staff communication and has brought increased staff efficiency and productivity to the office.
The resetting feature has also created accountability to staff to respond to requests for assistance. With the old flag system, BFBC found that certain staff frequently responded to requests. However, now they are able to monitor which staff members are fulfilling requests, allowing them to address any issues needed to maintain staff productivity and accountability.
FUTURE
Upon experiencing success with LRS’ Netpage and Butler II paging systems, BFPC is researching the use of LRS’ other onsite paging medical solutions – Allegiant Electronic Comment Card Survey System to get instant patient feedback, and the Patient Paging System to further improve patient flow and manage patient check-in processes.
BUSINESS BENEFITS
- Increase staff productivity with instant communication
- Improve staff response times
- Reduce labor cost with increased efficiency
- Monitor staff performance and productivity
- Reduce real estate/construction costs or requirements
- Enhance staff accountability
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