Overview
Country or Region: Australia
Industry: Healthcare
Customer Profile
With over 350 employees, Gold Coast Hospital is a Queensland Health 968-bed hospital offering services in all major health specialties.
Business Situation
Looking to improve business processes and productivity, Gold Coast Hospital wanted an intranet which would bring the hospital together, to be used to help staff, teams and patients.
Solution
IC’s intranet software provided all the tools they were looking for to streamline business processes and promote intranet collaboration.
Benefits
- Flexibility
- Smart Delegation
- Improved Communication
- Improved Training Processes
The Best Care. Anywhere
Emergency Web Intranet by Gold Coast Hospital
“The technical experience of our administrators varied, from people who were reasonably internet savvy to people who weren’t sure which side of the mouse to hold, so-to-speak, so the software had to work for everyone.”
– LEO MARNEROS | Director of Emergency Training, Gold Coast Hospital, Emergency Department
Leo Marneros, Director of Emergency Training at Gold Coast Hospital’s Emergency Department in Australia, sought to find a product that would help to improve internal operations, as well as patient care in the Emergency Department at Gold Coast Hospital. IC provided him with an intuitive, easy-to-use software that allowed him to delegate intranet content administration, increasing collaboration and communication on the site. This collaborative effort helped to enhance training processes as well as contribute to significant time-cost savings within the organization.
The Search for Innovation
Leo Marneros is driven by innovation. He continuously looks for resources and avenues to increase organization and enhance internal operational efficiency. He does this by leveraging web-based technology.
In early 2012, employees at Gold Coast Hospital were using social media to connect outside of the office and Leo wondered whether a similar internal solution could be used to improve collaboration and increase communication in their hospital community. He decided to seek out a social intranet platform that would meet these goals and began evaluating a variety of different hospital intranet solutions.
With 350 users and two hospital locations, Leo knew the solution could not require him to post and manage all site content or he would become a major bottleneck in the communication process. Instead, he wanted information to be collaborative and to flow smoothly within the organization, which meant finding an intranet solution that would allow non-technical administrators to add and manage content on the site.
A Smart and Simple Healthcare Solution
Leo evaluated a variety of intranet solutions and found that most of them were quite IT-heavy, which would limit his ability to delegate intranet content administration. IC presented a fully-functional, simple intranet solution that was quick to implement and empowered non-technical users to contribute and manage from day one.
Rather than being the main contributor, Leo became the champion and driver for the intranet, encouraging people to login and try it out. He started by using the Form Builder Application to build a credentialing tool on Rapid Sequence Induction. He used the test functionality of Form Builder to create an online, interactive test for hospital staff which would grade the submitting user once the test was completed. The user would receive their grade immediately with the option of reviewing the correct answers they got wrong. Randomized testing allowed them to take the test again, with different questions, or the same questions in a different order.
One of the senior doctors on staff found this very useful and asked Leo if he could create his own training form. Leo showed him a few simple steps to create the form and off he went.
Leo explained, the doctor “created an intricate, online test with embedded information, videos, case studies and links, which would take staff through the steps of the procedure, and then ask them a test question to ensure they had absorbed the information.”
Form Builder has built-in business workflow that allows test submissions to automatically be sent to supervisors for review and submission results are then stored on the intranet.
Gold Coast Hospital has also been able to revolutionize their Pathways Program by moving paper forms online. Patients in the ER who meet Pathways criteria can be discharged home after being given antibiotics and a 1-hour observation period, to be managed safely at home by the ‘Hospital in the Home Team’. This reduces the number of patients in the hospital, while still assuring all patients are given the utmost adequate healthcare.
Previously, ER staff would fill out a form online with patient information, print the form and put the form into a folder. Each morning the nurses would come into the hospital, check if there was a referral in the folder and then see the patients throughout the day. In the case where forms were missing information or contained information that was incorrect, the nurse would need to find the doctor who filled out the form to collect the correct information. This was a time-consuming process preventing nurses from performing their home care duties efficiently.
Gold Coast Hospital has since moved this process onto the intranet, removing the need to print the forms and reducing paper waste. All fields are now required to be filled out prior to the form being submitted online.
The online referral form includes embedded images, such as a map of where the patient can live to be eligible for the program, and a workflow that ensures once a form is submitted, it is emailed to the appropriate nurse on staff. Now the assigned nurse need only check his/her email rather than visit the ER in person. This is a more streamlined referral system that has yielded significant time-cost savings.
Vital Hospital Benefits
FLEXIBILITY: Creating an application using IC’s software is simple. Modifying the existing application becomes even easier with the drag-and-drop Application Builder. Training forms at Gold Coast Hospital now have the ability to be detailed and complex, while the actual form set-up with IC is simple enough for a non-technical user to build. There is no money wasted on hours of programming with easy drag-and-drop applications to rearrange orders of form fields and questions.
SMART DELEGATION: Gold Coast Hospital believes that those working on the frontline are in the best position to determine what systems are required and how to make them work. IC’s smart delegation allows frontline staff to self-serve and create what they need independently through the intranet. It is this delegation and simplicity of software that allows Gold Coast Hospital to achieve this vital aspect of their requirements. The result is an efficient healthcare intranet system that works for both doctors and nurses on the frontline.
IMPROVED COMMUNICATION: Gold Coast Hospital has two campuses and approximately 350 staff members. Effective communication between hospitals is essential to ensure hospital processes run smoothly. Prior to the intranet, communication was primarily executed through email, which was effective for one-to-one correspondence but became disorganized when multiple parties were involved or when used for complex processes such as case discussion. By moving correspondence and discussions onto the intranet, multiple people easily communicate and collaborate while information is stored in a communally searchable area on the intranet.
IMPROVED TRAINING PROCESSES: Gold Coast Hospital has one of the country’s strongest Emergency Specialist Training Programs. With IC, they were able to create a team site completely dedicated to training, which has facilitated strong communications and collaboration by opening it up to a greater number of staff members helping Gold Coast Hospital maintain their position. Using the Open Learning Collaborative Teaching Platform, they are able to delegate small educational modules over to different teams from nurses to nurse practitioners. This producer/mentor style learning gives them the ability to reach out to more groups and individuals.
“Our Intranet Credentialing Tools have helped make the hospital a safer place.”
– LEO MARNEROS DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY TRAINING AT GOLD COAST HOSPITAL’S EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT BNA