Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center (PBRMC) is located in Poplar Bluff, Missouri and serves Butler County and seven other surrounding counties. PBRMC is committed to meeting our community’s healthcare needs by providing compassionate, quality patient care. The medical center offers a wide range of services, including oncology, cardiology, orthopedics, robotic surgery, women’s health and more. Learn more at pbrmc.com.
Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center (PBRMC) has embarked on a journey to improve the patient experience and has implemented a Nurse Leader Rounding program focused specifically on key areas for improvement in Press Ganey scores for patient experience.
Purposeful and timely rounding is a best practice intervention to routinely meet patient care needs, ensure patient safety, decrease the occurrence of patient preventable events, and proactively address problems before they occur. The Institute for Healthcare Improvement endorsed hourly rounding as the best way to reduce call lights and fall injuries, and increase both quality of care and patient satisfaction.1
Prior to the transition to Qualaris, all leaders completed a one page document on every patient, Monday-Friday. With an average census of 150, compiling the information was incredibly tedious and it was difficult to derive any useful data in a timely manner.
“Using paper alone and putting in the work without the cumulative results,
didn't provide for much engagement for our leaders.”
Tim O’Neal, CNO
Having used Qualaris for a Hand Hygiene collaborative, Marcus & Tim knew there was a better way to manage a quality improvement initiative. Qualaris was rolled out to 30 leaders across the facility with no IT resources. The team was given a short video showing how to download the app to a mobile device, and an overview of how to use it. All leaders were very excited to use the product.
“We are using the electronic audit we created with real-time results, and that has the entire team engaged!”
Tim O’Neal, CNO
“With Qualaris, we interview the patient, make sure everything is going well, capture the audit information on the app, then hit submit. With the immediate turn-around time, data is recorded and available for reporting before seeing the next patient!”
Marcus Selvidge, CQO
Not only did they free up people from reviewing and collating the data, they also have the ability to track compliance in real time which they didn’t have before. The Qualaris platform has saved valuable time for all leaders in the organization.
Marcus estimates that the leadership team probably saves on average five hours/week per person just being able to see all the data in real time and not manually calculate it. “Before Qualaris, we had four steps: 1. compile, 2. review, 3. format then, 4. report. With Qualaris, steps two-four are completed because the system does all that for you.”
Tim is confident, “having the ability to verify and validate along with engaging the patient with leader rounding will help us drive up our patient experience scores.”
The dashboard tells the story. Poplar Bluff’s compliance started at 81% and they are at 92% right now, with a high of 94% in February.
“Since going live with Qualaris, we have seen substantial improvements with our patient satisfaction scores and our compliance rates. Being able to monitor non-compliance in real time allows us to focus on our needs week to week, helping to drive excellence.”
Tim O’Neal, CNO
PBRMC continues to develop new audits weekly, focusing on areas that need the most improvement. The team can now track things they never could before. This has allowed them to transition paper audit forms to electronic, allowing everything to be tracked and monitored real-time.
“With these new audits in place, we make adjustments, win over staff, and make patients safer.” Tim O’Neal, CNO
“It was pretty easy to make a case for Qualaris, when people see the reports real time, know where to focus and see all documented audits for any time period. It was one of the easiest sales I’ve been able to make.” Marcus Selvidge, CQO. Marcus pointed out that “Qualaris’ customer service has been fantastic, they are always willing to help out and get things worked out.”
“If you have any doubt, sign-up for a free trial, demo it for a while and it will be the deciding factor – I have found nothing else that will help streamline things the way this program does.” Marcus Selvidge, CQO
The team at Poplar Bluff plans to continue to use Qualaris across the organization for needs in patient experience, quality, nursing, and patient safety. One potential area for future use is Joint Commission Surveys. The action plans can be documented in Qualaris, and rolled out immediately, demonstrating compliance with the evidence to support it.
Qualaris Healthcare Solutions, Inc. provides affordable, easy-to-use auditing and reporting software for quality improvement, infection prevention and patient safety. Common topics include hand hygiene, falls prevention, rounding, accreditation tracers and PPE checks. Visit qualaris.com to learn more or sign up for a free trial.
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