Find out how Covenant Health Care improved operating room capacity and operating room throughput

1. Case Study
Covenant Health
At a Glance
Improves OR Productivity and Profitability
Organization
with Horizon Surgical Manager
Covenant Health Covenant Health, a comprehensive Horizon Surgical Manager integrates
Knoxville, Tenn. health system with five acute-care with Covenant’s registration,
– Five acute-care hospitals hospitals in eastern Tennessee, patient accounting, clinical nursing
– Methodist Medical Center of wanted to ensure its caregivers documentation and materials
Oak Ridge worked in unison. With disparate management systems, sharing data
processes impeding operational longitudinally across the continuum
– Fort Sanders Regional improvements, Covenant Health of care. “The patient doesn’t have
Medical Center implemented an integrated to repeatedly answer the same
– Parkwest Medical Center surgery solution from McKesson. questions,” explains Rhonda
– Fort Loudoun Medical Center The decision not only improved Crabtree, Covenant’s Information
communication but also increased Technology Business Consultant.
– Fort Sanders Sevier Medical revenue and improved OR (operating
Center room) capacity and throughput. “Before the patient finishes interop,
the preoperative record is available
Solution Spotlight Challenges for viewing. Clinicians in post-op,
– Horizon Surgical Manager Striving to consolidate processes, PACU and on the floor can access
Covenant standardized master the OR record via Horizon Clinicals®
– STAR Patient Accounting and the HorizonWP® Physician
files but found its facilities still
operated independently. Covenant Portal.”
Critical Issues needed consistency in its surgery
suites, its most profitable depart- Crabtree notes that the integration
– Productivity hindered by lack of Horizon Surgical Manager with
of standardization ment. Variances in OR turnover
rates, scheduling accuracy and McKesson’s STAR Patient Accounting
– Lack of integration between staff cost per case affected system allows the billing process to
surgery and other departments Covenant's productivity and begin immediately. “Physician
– Inefficient scheduling processes revenue potential. Additionally, offices can go online, view the
different OR information systems record and begin billing on the
– Large variances between actual day of surgery, instead of waiting
and scheduled case time existed across the enterprise.
Covenant needed a solution that three days for paperwork.”
– High room turnover rate would streamline processes and
optimize productivity. Results
Results Covenant quickly realized improve-
– Standardized OR information Answers ments across the enterprise, most
system and processes To improve data integration, notably at Methodist Medical
Covenant Health upgraded all Center. Previously an efficient
– Increased OR volume, adding ORSOS One-Call™ customer,
$1.5 million in annual revenue facilities to the Horizon Surgical
Manager™ system. All of Methodist tightly scheduled cases,
– Accommodated more surgeons Covenant’s acute-care facilities overbooking by 10 minutes per case
without adding staff now work cohesively. on average. With Horizon Surgical
– Boosted staff productivity Manager, that variance is less than
one minute.
– Improved resource utilization

2. Case Study
“Horizon Surgical Manager “Horizon Surgical Manager is offset times needed adjustment to
better than anything we could have improve efficiency,” she says.
is better than anything we imagined,” relays Crabtree. “We
could have imagined. . . . can block time more accurately and Covenant is particularly pleased
drive our productivity up. Now we with the system’s preference
Now we can accommodate can accommodate more physicians card management tool, which
without having to add staff.” automatically recommends items
more physicians without to be added or removed based
having to add staff.” She adds, “Methodist can on actual usage.
potentially schedule several
additional surgical cases per day, “I’ve never seen a system with an
which contributes to a $1.5 million out-of-the-box tool that’s this
Rhonda Crabtree increase in annual revenue.” robust as far as making predictive
Information Technology changes,” says Crabtree. “The
Covenant soon began to analyze accuracy is really pretty amazing.”
Business Consultant average staff cost per case at Covenant uses Horizon Surgical
each facility, tracking significant Manager to track inventory, record
Covenant Health variances. “We use this data to supply use and forecast future needs.
ensure the proper skill mix is
available while bringing more The Patient Tracking module of
predictability to the cost and Horizon Surgical Manager
profitability of each case,” communicates case, patient and
Crabtree explains. room status, as well as staff roles
and locations. “Clinicians can see if
Using Horizon Surgical Manager, the next patient is in holding yet,”
Covenant measures the average reports Crabtree. “If a patient
time a patient spends in each phase hasn’t shown up at the hospital,
of care. “We can tell if patients are they can quickly reorder cases. It’s
spending too much time in the post especially effective for add-on
anesthesia care unit (PACU), which patients because it shows when
can produce a bottleneck that lab work is complete.”
ripples throughout the surgical
suite,” reports Crabtree. “We can Patient Tracking also eases waiting
anticipate and correct problems.” room anxiety by displaying the
patient’s progress on large-scale
With Horizon Surgical Manager, monitors for the family to follow.
Covenant analyzes turnover time by
quarter, month, room or doctor, as “Now everyone is truly working
well as by case type or procedure. together,” she says. “And we’ve
“A high turnover time for open- only scratched the surface of what
heart cases makes sense, but some Horizon Surgical Manager will do.
It’s an extremely powerful system.”
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