I recently had the opportunity to be a part of the software sale and implementation at a large health system. It was a huge opportunity for Extract Systems, the type of deal I love to be involved with. A high-profile health system, covering multiple states, with complicated workflows and strong leadership involvement. The organization was looking for software to help improve the processing of non-interfaced outside labs. This organization values data and understands that having ALL lab results, for ALL patients in their EMR was a benefit to their providers and ultimately their patients.
To make this happen they needed software like Extract Systems’ LabDE software to increase productivity and accuracy. In today’s labor shortage environment with health systems looking to reduce costs, hiring hundreds of employees to abstract ALL lab values isn’t possible. With our software, the client can achieve total data capture on ALL patients without having to increase staff (and they’ve been able to reassign staff).
Go-live was a tremendous success. Extract’s LabDE product was able to capture 94% of lab values off faxed/scanned documents. The staff responsible for the verification/indexing of these lab results’ productivity skyrocketed using automation software. Providers were getting lab values the same day they were sent in, patients were able to see these lab values in their patient portal, and nursing and support staff were extremely satisfied. One of the users even said, “what used to take me all day, I can complete in 4 hours, freeing me up to do other patient-focused work.” As healthcare organizations look to become more efficient with the resources they have, data and document automation is exactly what they need.
This isn’t a blog just to discuss the success of the software because that has happened at every client we have installed. This is a blog about what I saw and learned from a leadership perspective.
One of the underrated values of LabDE are its productivity and quality/accuracy dashboards. These dashboards can be viewed globally (for all sites) and down to the individual user. The data is tremendously insightful for leadership.
As the healthcare organization continued to debrief and review these dashboards with myself and the Extract implementation team, it became clear that certain sites and certain individuals’ performances were below their peers’. Often, I see organizations use the dashboards to reassign staff or make changes in the workforce. This organization went in the opposite direction, wanting to use the Extract dashboard data to understand where leadership failed the site or failed the individual user. The mantra was “what did we learn, how can we improve, and what can we do to uplift everyone.”
So they spent time finding out what made the successful sites and individuals thrive. They took detailed notes, asked important questions, and dug into the data. The organization was going to use the Extract LabDE implementation as a roadmap for future projects in the health system.
A couple of the key findings:
The sites that excelled had strong leadership, and an open-door policy to ask questions, all questions were answered, documented, and shared.
The users that excelled asked questions, weren’t afraid to fail and learn, trusted their leadership, and were open to change (like new software).
There is always going to be variance by site or individual when using software, but it isn’t often that an organization uses the implementation of software to improve how they lead and train their staff in the future. The client continues to train up staff that is struggling (with great success) and improve workflow at sites. They have set-up additional training with the Extract trainers and asked Extract to analyze workflows for improvement – Extract is more than happy to help.
It is always fun and exciting to be a part of successful go-live. Its great seeing our software exceed expectations that were set during discovery. It’s amazing to see an organization use an implementation of Extract’s LabDE to uplift staff and sites.
I would encourage you to come find out more about what Extract is doing for health systems. Come watch a demo and see how we can help your organization, reduce staff load, increase provider satisfaction, and improve patient care.
About the Author: Josh Nail
Josh is the Regional Business Development Manager at Extract with more than 18 years of experience in the healthcare marketplace. His healthcare background includes Revenue Cycle software solutions, HIM software solutions and EHR solutions. When not helping Health Systems improve patient care, increase provider satisfaction while delivering a return on investment you can find him Fly-fishing, Skiing, or playing Golf.