It is impossible to be a patient-centered organization without the tools and resources to move patients successfully and safely through their hospitalization.
This is why Denise Pitney, care management systems consultant, was recognized by her peers on the system transformation and re-engineering team for the pivotal role she played in developing standard work, workflow design and reports for the newly launched Care Management Throughput Initiative.
The Care Management Throughput Initiative has created a treasure trove of information on the patient’s progression towards discharge that will be utilized throughout the acute continuum. The daily report provides unit-level information on: length of stay, number of homeless patients, potential daily discharge volume, potential weekend discharge volume, and estimates on bed capacity in a single real-time document. The report is auto-scheduled and delivered multiple times daily to care management staff and other care teams at Alameda, San Leandro and Highland hospitals.
To Pitney, she’s just doing her job. If you casually ask her what she does, she’ll tell you she helps the care management team with “technical stuff.” But if you want to take a deeper dive, she’ll share; “I perform analyses and reporting so that the care management leadership team is building and improving as a data-driven organization to meet our strategic plan. We use multiple applications in care management but our primary workflow application is MIDAS.”
MIDAS helps healthcare organizations use patient data to manage, monitor and measure everything from patient safety to clinical outcomes. The application has multiple features for quickly tailoring existing workflows or creating new ones. The information collected becomes a data source for reporting using any standard business intelligence tool.
As a non-clinical team member, Pitney feels a great sense of accomplishment knowing her efforts help the clinical teams perform their work. “I’m humbled and honored to be part of the AHS mission. I love playing with data, understanding patterns and problem-solving, and I do it all to music! Right now my favorite playlist has a few songs from one of our local AHS musicians,” said Pitney. “Honestly, some days what I do doesn’t even feel like work. Care management is being transformed through the use of data and it’s pretty exciting to be part of that. Go team!”
In addition to her daily role, Denise is also on the S•A•P•P•H•I•R•E team assisting with the build of new Care Management workflows. When not working, she’s playing Ultimate Frisbee, hiking, kickboxing when time permits and creating new gluten-free recipes for her son.