Affiliations

Aurora Sinai Medical Center

Presentation Notes

Poster presented at: Building Bridges Southeastern Wisconsin Nursing Research Conference; April 19, 2024. Milwaukee, WI.

Abstract

Background: Inefficiencies and vacancies in support roles exist between non-nursing disciplines (environmental services, transport, central supply, facilities, biomed, dietary, etc.) and nursing. This results in additional strain on nursing staff, negatively impacting nurse satisfaction patient care and throughput/length of stay. Inconsistencies and lack of standardization across departments creates opportunities for process failures.Purpose: The clinical operations tech (COT) pilot position was developed to reduce the impact of non-clinical tasks from the bedside staff workflow, provide regulatory compliance support, unit standardization, and increase throughput. Nursing spends up to one third of their time on non-nursing tasks which leads to decreased nursing satisfaction, increased burnout, and increased safety events.

Population/Setting: The COT was piloted on four inpatient units at Aurora Sinai Medical Center (ASMC), a mid-sized urban hospital that serves a diverse adult patient population.

Outcomes: The COT has been instrumental in creating standardization on units and support of ancillary department process development/compliance. A decrease in time spent on these tasks was seen throughout the pilot along with improved throughput and compliance with regulatory metrics. Examples of standardized workflows include equipment management, supply requests, isolation cart flow, equipment cleaning, code cart maintenance, oxygen tank management, discharge room prep, telemetry process support, sitter meal breaks, PHI security concerns and interiors assessments/ticket entering.

Conclusion: The COT position has shown through the pilot to provide improvements to throughput/length of stay, improved regulatory compliance, identification of safety/regulatory opportunities, as well as standardization of processes throughout the pilot units. This position decreases the time bedside staff are spending on non-nursing related tasks to ensure nursing remains focused on patient care.

Document Type

Poster

Download


 

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.