Staffing & Consulting Sponsored By:

By Tracey Graham

The expenditure of healthcare construction dollars is expected to be over $100 billion in fiscal year 2015. As such, hospitals are seeking reliable, proficient ways to spend their money. One way to do it is through the first-hand, readily available insights of nursing staff.

As a Nurse Practitioner now working with a design firm, I can come to the table with extensive and eclectic insight and experience in hospital operations and clinical practice. Nurses like me serve as true advocates for the patient and their families, while understanding the needs and expectations of the hospital staff and administrative constraints for ROI. My goal with my clients is to bring their mission, vision, and end-user experience to the forefront to help navigate operations, improve the design process, and translate the needs and wants from staff to designers to hospital executives.  

By involving nurses in the pre-design process, I have seen great success and savings in expending capital since their input directly informs proactive vs reactive preparation and planning for future business process and space. Adding this early step allows the design team to explore data and ideas and map present, future, and innovate approaches prior to being transformed into drawings or plans. It gives all an opportunity to study business trends, benchmarks, accreditation, service lines and evidenced-based practice requirements. This information is then used to align a hospital’s vision with its strategic plan.

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A Large Compliance and Reporting Task Ahead for Employers 

The EEOC announced on Friday, January 29, 2016, its intention to submit to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) a major revision to the Employer Information Report (EEO-1) which will require that all employers with more than 100 employees submit compensation data to the EEOC beginning in 2017. The new EEO-1 form will take the place of the Department of Labor’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs’ (OFCCP) pending “Equal Pay Report” regulations, which would have affected only federal contractors and subcontractors.

By Marsha Knapik, Director
Brian Keller, Senior IT Applications Developer
Corazon, Inc.

Not so long ago, scribbled nurse’s notes and physician orders, along with paper medication requisitions and numerous other handwritten documents dominated the healthcare system.  The gradual move to electronic clinical documentation as an initial step, and now (at advanced organizations) a completely electronic health record, has gained rapid momentum in recent years.  In fact, such a movement can now be considered the only way to encourage complete and fully-integrated medical records… a desirable goal for hospital administrators, clinicians, physicians, and perhaps even patients who know the benefits that optimized technology in the healthcare setting can bring. 

While rapid advances in technology make it possible to ensure documentation is provided electronically, this technology, if used correctly, can also identify gaps or deficiencies in care, serve as a means to guide best practices, and provide a platform for efficient and effective data collection and reporting.  Corazon believes that using IT to its fullest potential is a worthwhile effort that can bring both short- and long-term value to a hospital – clinically, operationally, and financially.

For example, Corazon’s CEREBROS® software provides a documentation template for the required neurological assessments and specific evaluations for a known/suspected stroke patient. This template system ensures that the patient receives all components of the appropriate evaluation; if data to that end is not provided within a specific timeframe, a prompt appears to notify the clinician that an important component of care was missed.  Just consider the possibilities if numerous care paths were motivated and tracked and by standardized “steps” – the right patient receives the right care at the right time…EVERY TIME. [Read more…]