VITAS first worked with us about five years ago. They wanted to give their staff mobile devices to relay important daily care information faster and easier.
“Our goal this time was to reduce time incurred during the patient admissions process and increase speed to bedside by VITAS clinicians,” said Patrick Hale, CIO, EVP. “We reached out for the best talent we could find, and we loved the team that Centric brought,” he added. “They really meshed well with our team, and their technology expertise is unsurpassed.”
Chris Martinez, technology practice lead for Centric’s Miami office, met with VITAS executives and clinicians to understand how their system worked and to create a roadmap that would help the technology team convert VITAS’ paper processes to digital.
“At the time, nurses in the field were taking reams of forms with them to admit patients into care. We decided to transfer this information to iPads to help them do the process more quickly,” Chris explained.
“The initial challenge was to have the right subject matter experts in place, and be sure the 5,000 end users could understand the technology,” he added. “Many of them already used iOS devices in their personal lives, so switching them to iPads and iPhones was pretty easy.”
The VITAS and Centric technology team set out to create an app that would collect the information needed while not affecting the bedside experience.
“Using this technology, the clinician doesn’t turn their back on the patient while collecting information; the iPad or iPhone basically disappears from the equation,” said Hale. “It’s easy to set it down to hold a hand or to provide treatment.”
The app is extremely user-friendly, featuring a real-time interface so that clinicians don’t have to remember to store and then later forward information. A “body picker” enables users to click on an on-screen body part, such as the left arm, and enter a pain or wound score. The app also has a voice dictation feature.
“We created an app that is very familiar to our clinicians; when they open it, it looks like a chart,” said Hale. “They can point, click and swipe, and because the app translates touch to text, it eliminates 60 to 70 keystrokes.”
The app has created other efficiencies as well. In the past, a patient’s or caregiver’s first call to VITAS went to one of three nationwide call centers. The center would call the local program and share the patient’s medical history and needs, which required a lot of back-and-forth calls.
