Blessing Hospital integrates AtStaff’s ClairVia Patient Acuity system with its EMR

Sep 21 2009

By integrating AtStaff’s ClairVia^® Patient Acuity system with its electronic medical record (EMR), Blessing Hospital of Quincy, Ill., is driving patient acuity and staffing workload directly and automatically from its existing clinical documentation -- a significant advancement in evidenced-based, outcomes-driven care.

“We are very proud to make this go-live announcement, and to be partnering with Blessing Hospital in this important step forward in improving patient outcomes, and increasing the quality and efficiency of healthcare,” says Beth Pickard, President and Chief Executive Officer of AtStaff, Inc. “The integration of our multi-disciplinary, outcomes-based acuity system and clinical information systems enables today’s healthcare organizations to fully leverage their rich patient data in making evidence-based staffing decisions and delivering more personalized, patient-centered care.”

Jill Mason, MS, RN, Chief Nursing Officer at Blessing Hospital, a not-for-profit, independent hospital serving West Central Illinois, Northeast Missouri, and Southeast Iowa, reports that the integration better positions Blessing to deliver higher quality care and improve clinical outcomes.

“As our caregivers complete patients’ clinical documentation in our Eclipsys EMR, ClairVia Patient Acuity operates simultaneously to calculate workload for staffing levels and skill mix needed to move these patients to each next level of wellness and progressing toward discharge,” Mason says.

ClairVia Patient Acuity receives patient assessments, through HL7 connectivity, from organization’s clinical systems. The patient assessments are mapped to patient outcomes and seamlessly converted to an acuity score and an associated staffing workload for each patient. Patient acuity levels are updated continuously as patient assessments are entered into the EMR.

“A significant benefit of ClairVia Patient Acuity, one that supports both quality patient care and staff satisfaction here at Blessing, is that no additional workload or steps are required of our staff to calculate acuity,” reports Mason. “Rather than being a separate system that takes staff time and attention away from patient care, ClairVia Patient Acuity leverages the patient assessments that are part of nurses’ everyday clinical documentation, professional nursing practice, and outcomes-driven care.”

Another important advantage, she says, is that ClairVia Patient Acuity “precisely measures the variability of patient needs in a valid and reliable manner.”

Traditional acuity systems are often plagued by “acuity creep,” which occurs when subjective methods and ratings are used to determine workload levels, and these levels are often skewed. For years, healthcare decision-makers have sought a more accurate acuity methodology to deliver more precise, efficient and clinically appropriate staffing levels.

“With ClairVia Patient Acuity, there is no room for subjectivity because acuity levels reflect actual patient documentation and are part of the electronic medical record,” Masons points out. “Both our clinical and financial leaders have the confidence of knowing that staffing workload is accurate and cost effective.

“In addition, a significant, secondary benefit of the integration of ClairVia acuity and our EMR is improved accuracy and completeness of our overall patient care documentation. This translates into more accurate acuity measurements and positions our organization to better meet state and Joint Commission standards regarding clinical documentation.”

The Children’s Hospital, one of the premier children’s hospitals in the nation, selects ClairVia Patient Acuity and plans integration with its EMR

ClairVia Patient Acuity’s outcomes-based approach and its ability to integrate with clinical documentation were key determinants in the recent decision by The Children’s Hospital of Denver, Colo. to implement the solution.

“There were several critical factors for selecting ClairVia as the best choice for our organization,” reports Darla J. Van Essen, MS, RN, NEA-BC, Administrative Director of Nursing at The Children’s Hospital, consistently ranked as one of the top 10 children’s hospitals in the nation. “We wanted an integrated staffing, scheduling and acuity system, and we wanted a system that would be driven by our electronic clinical documentation. And beyond that, ClairVia Patient Acuity was differentiated from other products based on the ability to look at the impact of nursing interventions on patient care outcomes. We expect that the system will further our evidence-based clinical practice.”

On a day-to-day basis, Van Essen says, driving patient acuity directly from their Epic EMR at The Children’s Hospital will “limit subjective interpretation of patient acuity and will improve overall clinical documentation.”

“Our clinical documentation team and the ClairVia acuity team are working together to improve and enhance the EMR,” she states. “This will result in improved and more efficient clinical documentation. Our caregivers will save time by eliminating redundant and unnecessary documentation, and we expect to improve the delivery of patient care by focusing on clinical outcomes.”

Van Essen emphasizes that an ongoing benefit of the EMR/patient acuity integration is the great potential for research and data analysis, particularly examining how specific, outcomes-based caregiver interventions impact clinical and financial results.

“In looking to advance the practice of pediatric nursing, we hope that we can utilize the information from ClairVia acuity to conduct research related to specific nursing interventions,” she says. “We will correlate this work with our hospital initiatives related to patient progression and clinical care guidelines. We will be able to anticipate expected length of stay, as well as explore the efficacy and efficiency of the care delivered.”

www.blessinghospital.org