Becker's Clinical Quality & Infection Control

41 QUALITY IMPROVEMENT & MEASUREMENT Apps for automatic OR, NICU updates raise patient, family satisfaction By Andrea Park I n some hospitals, families and caregivers no longer have to wait anxiously for updates while a loved one is in the operating room or inten- sive care unit, thanks to apps and services that allow clinicians to automatically send updates in text, photo or video format. According to e Wall Street Journal, several of the most popular products include the Electronic Access to Surgical Events, or EASE, app, which prompts nurses to send messages and photos from the OR and NICU to parents every 30 minutes. Another service, from Natus Medical, is NicView, which offers real-time streaming from the NICU to any web-based device. ough use of this technology has sparked significant increases in patient and family satis- faction — for example, aer EASE was installed at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, 97 percent of families rated their sur- gery experience as "very good," compared to a previous level of 80 percent — adoption is still less than widespread. Per the WSJ, only 200 U.S. hospitals have installed NicView cameras and 60 use the EASE app. This reluctance stems in part from privacy concerns for both patients and providers, but even more so from the high cost of imple- mentation. According to the WSJ, EASE costs $20,000 to $500,000 per year, depending on the size of the hospital or health system, while each NicView camera costs up to $2,000 for installation, on top of a $200 annual per-cam- era fee for the service. Still, many hospitals have found that the improve- ments in patient and family experience associated with services such as EASE and NicView are well worth the trouble of addressing these challenges. Plus, the products simply make sense: "If I can track my food on Uber Eats or my package on Amazon, why can't I track my family member's condition in the OR?" Patrick de la Roza, EASE co-founder and CEO, told the WSJ. n CMS feedback on MIPS performance isn't helpful, medical groups say By Emily Rappleye M ost medical groups (86 percent) feel regulatory burden has increased in the past year, with 77 percent pointing to CMS' Quality Payment Program as "very" or "extremely" burden- some, according to the Medical Group Management Association's "Annual Regulatory Burden Survey." The survey includes responses from executives of more than 400 group practices. Eighty-one percent of respondents participate in the QPP's Merit-based Incentive Payment System. A few key findings on how medical groups feel about MIPS: • 87 percent say positive payment adjustments have not covered the cost of participating in the program • 77 percent say CMS' feedback on cost performance isn't action- able to help improve costs • 76 percent say CMS' feedback on quality performance isn't action- able to improve clinical outcomes • The QPP was seen as the most burdensome regulatory require- ment after prior authorization n What health systems can learn from airplane flight crews By Anuja Vaidya C rew resource management, an aviation strategy that can be adapted to healthcare settings, helps reduce adverse events and results in cost savings, according to a study published in Ameri- can Journal of Medical Quality. Crew resource management is a process first used by airplane crew members to spot safety threats, come up with a plan to avoid or lessen them and communicate that plan to the crew. It combines elements of teamwork, such as situational awareness, communication and task management, and human factors, such as coordination and decision-making. Researchers examined the effect of using crew resource management training at about 3,000 health system from July 2010 to July 2013. Em- ployees in 12 areas were trained at a cost of $3.6 million. They found that the total number of adverse events avoided was 735, and cost savings for the health systems ranged from $12.6 million up to $28 million. They calculated that the overall return on investment for crew resource management training ranged from $9.1 million to $24.4 million. n

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