GE launches hospital capacity management system
3 June 2011
GE Healthcare Performance Solutions has introduced Patient
Care Capacity Management (PCCM), a new system aimed at solving the poor
hospital utilization and ineffective capacity management.
Today, hospitals are being forced to do more with less, driving
leaders to seek solutions that will allow them to improve
efficiencies while delivering better care to more patients — safely
and sustainably.
St Luke’s Episcopal Hospital (SLEH), an 864-bed tertiary care
teaching institution located in Houston, Texas, is the first health
system to further expand the PCCM solution, originally piloted in
partnership with New York City’s The Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Combining advisory services, technology, governance strategies, and
GE operational methodologies, the PCCM solution
will enable SLEH to achieve utilization rates well above the current
hospital industry average.
“Hospitals and healthcare systems
around the world are under pressure to better align their current
capacity with demand in order to drive efficient, high-quality
patient care,” said Jan De Witte, president and CEO, GE Healthcare
Performance Solutions and GE Healthcare IT.
“We have worked with hospitals worldwide on various departmental
operational transformation projects, but addressing enterprise-wide
optimization is what the PCCM solution aims to tackle. In order to
drive enterprise-wide success and sustainability, you need deep tool
sets, intellectual property and technology that can take into
account the complexity of all the interdependent departments and
variability. We, at GE, are confident in our ability to help
hospitals operate in a more efficient, safe and sustainable way.”
St Luke’s Episcopal Hospital (SLEH)
GE will work with
SLEH to improve capacity management across its health system, better
manage patient length of stay, and improve staff satisfaction. In
order to accomplish this, SLEH will undergo an entire hospital
transformation that requires strategic planning and technology,
which will result in operational changes within the OR, inpatient
care units, emergency, cath lab and radiology departments. GE began
the engagement in March 2011 and will work toward completion in
2012. At the end of the engagement, it is estimated that SLEH will
realize a potential savings of more than $10 million.
“In
today’s healthcare environment, caregivers are often burdened by
operational inefficiencies. We’re entering an era where capacity
management is becoming one of the biggest challenges faced by
hospitals and health systems—clinically, operationally and
financially,” said Margaret M. Van Bree, DrPH, chief executive
officer, SLEH, and senior vice president, St. Luke’s Episcopal
Health System Corporation.
“Our goal with GE Healthcare Performance
Solutions is to remove this burden from our clinicians, allowing
them to dedicate more time to patients. St. Luke’s has a storied
history of clinical innovation and excellence, and this
collaboration will further enhance the hospital’s delivery of
high-quality, cost-effective healthcare.”
Industry capacity
management challenges
Most hospitals around the
globe — approximately 70% — operate at underutilized levels of
occupancy but feel full because of enterprise-wide inefficiencies.
Highly utilized hospitals — approximately 30% — currently operate
at very high occupancy, but in many cases their current operations
may not permit them to serve more patients or grow.
More than
70% of hospital costs are typically fixed, suggesting the
potential for significant cost savings, if resources could be better
managed. Obstacles including lack of integration between
departments, limited access to real-time data, variations in care
models and governance shortfalls are among the reasons why so few
hospitals currently operate above the 80 percent utilization mark.
“The public debate about rising healthcare costs often
misses the fundamental point, that most hospitals presently face
daunting financial and operational challenges and generate very
small operating margins,” Wayne Keathley, president and COO, The
Mount Sinai Hospital.
“Healthcare reform will put even more pressure
on hospitals to improve efficiency. We must leverage infrastructure
and resources to provide higher quality care while controlling costs
and making prudent capital investments. Our work with GE has
positioned us to better manage patient flow, capacity and demand for
services in a more efficient, safer and sustainable manner. We
believe that busy is the “new normal” and that hospitals will need
to squeeze every ounce of value out of its infrastructure. The
sophisticated system and tools that we have employed with GE makes
that possible.”
Patient Care Capacity Management
GE
Healthcare’s PCCM global solution provides an integrated approach
that involves capacity strategy, new technology and improved
operations. GE has deep expertise with the various elements that
make-up the PCCM solution in the United States, UK, France and Saudi
Arabia, enabling hospitals to operate safely and sustainably at
optimal occupancy. To date, GE has completed over 80 operational
transformation projects worldwide. The PCCM solution involves
several GE capabilities which involve articulating a capacity
strategy, deploying technology and delivering operations with
patient flow analysis.
(1) Capacity Strategy: The goal of
articulating a Capacity Strategy is to reduce variation and drive
consistency through simulation modeling, identify bottlenecks and
optimize critical activities. Modeling enables hospitals to test
scenarios such as opening and closing capacity for operating rooms
and the reduction in patient flow variation through redistributing
daily discharge and admission times.
(2) Technology: It’s
essential that leaders across the organization have the same view of
reality within the hospital. In order to accomplish this, GE
Healthcare Performance Solutions deploys AgileTrac, an operational
software system that serves as the “air-traffic-control system” for
the hospital. It allows organizations to track staff, patients and
equipment so that process flow information is available in
real-time.
(3) Operations: Operational transformation
activities are launched to achieve the goals of the Capacity
Strategy. The operational transformation includes a reduction in the
variation of surgical services, an alignment of unit capacity, an
integration of technologies and workflows, and the creation of
governance.
The PCCM solution has been developed to address
the global healthcare industry needs. It is first being launched in
the United States but will be introduced into the global markets
over the course of the next year.