The future of heath care and skilled nursing rests in the hands of caregivers — caregivers powered by the best data insights the industry has ever had. From the patient experience and workplace culture to operational efficiency and regulatory compliance, when used the right way, data plays a critical role in facilitating care delivery.
Through data insights, SNFs can address many of their biggest operational, compliance and care challenges, says TK King, VP of Healthcare Strategy at Accushield, which replaces manual paper processes with tablet-based kiosks and a mobile app to capture health screening, visitor logs, document capture, visit and staff feedback and more for anyone who enters a SNF, including all residents, third-party caregivers, staff and visitors.
But data brings its own challenges.
“A significant issue that most skilled nursing providers face with regards to data is the amount of data they’re collecting, and using it in a meaningful way that promotes operational efficiencies, quality of care or just general compliance with state or federal regulations,” King says.
The most common feedback that Accushield receives is rooted in this data overload: “I have data and I don’t know how to get all of it and what to do with it.” The challenge that SNFs often have, he says, is pulling data from multiple systems and sources, and then doing something useful with it.
In short, to best use the mountains of data they are already collecting, SNFs need to gain three skills:
- How to improve data access via integrations
- How to identify the data that solves today’s operational problems
- How to automate regulatory reporting compliance using the data that’s collected
$31,000+ of annual labor savings: How data solves today’s operational problems
Managing data is a challenge. That’s the truth. With SNFs drawing data from multiple systems doing different things, “there’s a lot of crossover,” King says, “and a bit of redundancy.”
So when an agency cracks the code, the benefits are enormous. Here is a look at King’s top three, in his own words.
- Operational efficiencies. “One of the major operational problems is workforce development and making sure you have resources in the right place. Operators that leverage data to pinpoint where those opportunities are in their workflows and tasks in order to give more time back to staff – that is a huge win.”
- Quality of care. “This is all about outcomes — tracking and trending how infections enter a facility for example, and then pinpointing the interventions that are in place. The big one there, too, especially with how Accushield can help drive that, is avoidable exposure and avoidable infections — and not just with COVID-19.”
- Overall compliance. “Gathering data and using it to make decisions is one priority, but the other benefit to leveraging data is using it to support regulatory compliance. Whether it’s an investigation from a state survey or automating NHSN and PBJ reporting, using data and technology the right way can help with compliance.”
To that end, Accushield focuses on helping SNFs with the basics first: capturing data and getting comfortable in a digital world.
“We find that a lot of providers are still manually capturing critical data on paper,” King says. “Accushield reduces the time spent manually collecting data, places the power of technology into their employees’ hands and enables electronic data capture which is then verified by management and turned into actionable and meaningful data.”
One recent Accushield case study that analyzed technology ROI found that the average 100-bed SNF using Accushield saves around $31,000 of labor per year, or about 1,100 hours.
“That’s strictly just allowing their staff to capture data within the kiosk and mobile app,” he says. When you add in the time saved by automating visitor management and health screening, third-party caregiver logs, and other key processes, the return on investment grows tremendously.
Lessons learned from integration: top benefits and outcomes for SNFs
The SNFs that are making those tremendous savings have already gone through one of the most difficult parts of using technology: integrating it.
“The first and most important step is knowing what questions to ask and then not being afraid to ask them,” King says. Both operators and clinicians should make it a point to talk to all of their tech vendors and ask them about their integration capabilities, including those that share staff and resident census to those that share clinical data.
“Leveraging your vendors and partners and having your clinical leads evaluate your programs to ensure they’re up to date — that is also important,” he says.
Once integration is in place, SNFs will start seeing a range of benefits. The biggest, King says, is the ability to truly deliver resident-centered care. With the right data and the ability to correctly parse it, SNFs can give their caregivers more time at the bedside by reducing the time they spend working manually on data entry and analysis. This creates operational efficiencies and improves the business’s overall fiscal health.
“We help SNF operators not only collect key data, but also understand the value of that data, and how to make informed and timely decisions with it,” King says.
This article is sponsored by Accushield. To learn more about how Accushield can help your SNF, visit Accushield.com.