Latest / Becker’s Healthcare Podcast / Transforming Patient Flow and IT Quality at University Health with Ashley Schutz
Transcript
- 0:00This is Scott Becker with the Beckers HealthCare
- 0:02podcast.
- 0:04We're thrilled today to be joined by a
- 0:05brilliant lifelong
- 0:07leader, our favorite type of leader. We're joined
- 0:10today by Ashley Schutz,
- 0:11and Ashley is the director of IT quality
- 0:14assurance at at University Health Texas in San
- 0:17Antonio.
- 0:18Ashley has done a tremendous job over seeing
- 0:20so many interesting efforts at University Health,
- 0:23whether Epic implementation,
- 0:25lean task implementation, and and so much more.
- 0:28We're gonna talk to her today about operating
- 0:30technologies,
- 0:31and and just technologies in general and trying
- 0:33to implement them well and working with teams
- 0:35to do so. Ashley, can you take a
- 0:38moment to introduce yourself and tell us a
- 0:40bit about yourself and your work in health
- 0:42care at University Health in San Antonio, Texas?
- 0:45Yeah. Thank you so much. First and foremost,
- 0:47thanks for having me.
- 0:49I'm really excited to share our story and,
- 0:51my thoughts on health care IT.
- 0:53But a little bit about me, I've actually
- 0:55worked for University Health for thirteen years.
- 0:58I started with them. It's kind of a
- 1:00long winding road, but I've started my career
- 1:02with them as a medical laboratory scientist in
- 1:04our microbiology
- 1:06department.
- 1:07But, basically, I latched on to anything related
- 1:09to process improvement
- 1:11and especially crossover with other departments.
- 1:14So
- 1:15in 2018,
- 1:16the opportunity came up to join the EPIC
- 1:19team,
- 1:20and I thought what better time to get
- 1:22more involved than the implementation of a system
- 1:24wide EHR system.
- 1:26So that was like a big switch in
- 1:28my career from
- 1:29microbiology
- 1:30into IT, but
- 1:32story for another day.
- 1:34We actually went live during the COVID pandemic,
- 1:38which was also,
- 1:40pretty exciting times.
- 1:42But pretty quickly after going live, I got
- 1:45back into that process improvement mindset where I
- 1:48saw a lot of opportunities
- 1:50where we could bridge the gap between operations
- 1:52and IT.
- 1:54And basically,
- 1:55I moved into my current role, which is
- 1:58the IT director of quality assurance.
- 2:00And then a few years ago, I ended
- 2:02up going back to school. I got my
- 2:03master's in healthcare administration
- 2:05just so I can pull the whole picture
- 2:07together.
- 2:08And basically over my career, I feel like
- 2:10I've kind of turned into this Swiss army
- 2:12blade.
- 2:13I like to bridge the gap in between
- 2:15IT and operations. That's where I found my
- 2:17little niche area. And
- 2:19one year ago, I would say, we
- 2:21got the news that we were going to
- 2:23be partnering with LeanTos for our inpatient throughput.
- 2:27And our COO, who was our CIO at
- 2:29the time, actually asked me if I wanted
- 2:31to oversee the implementation.
- 2:33So here we are a little over a
- 2:35year out from our discovery and kickoff call
- 2:38and, sharing our success story.
- 2:41Thank you. And what's fascinating is you're like
- 2:43the epitome of a lifelong
- 2:45learner,
- 2:46microbiologist
- 2:47to IT,
- 2:48back to do a master's
- 2:50degree. I mean, it's it's such an impressive
- 2:53thing, and congratulations
- 2:54on a on a fantastic career.
- 2:56You you saw it bring a unique, expective
- 2:59perspective
- 3:00to someone who grew up in the health
- 3:01care IT world. When you look at health
- 3:03IT today, hospital IT teams
- 3:06adopting and implementing new technologies
- 3:08effectively,
- 3:10what have you found most important? What works
- 3:12when people are getting things going or or
- 3:14starting new technologies? Because You've been on the
- 3:16EPIC team that the implementation there. You've worked
- 3:19on this, the the
- 3:20the IQ for inpatient flow team with link
- 3:23toss. Talk about what what's most important in
- 3:25implementing new technologies effectively.
- 3:28Yeah. That's a good question.
- 3:31I from my perspective, I think the most
- 3:33important thing is
- 3:35to really get in there, to know your
- 3:37end users, know their workflow, and then become
- 3:40as familiar as you can with the system
- 3:42architecture.
- 3:43I think in today's world,
- 3:45we are becoming so dependent on IT. I
- 3:48mean, with increasing patient volumes and
- 3:51it's impossible to keep up with the workload
- 3:54if you are not keeping up with your
- 3:56technical systems.
- 3:58And it's there to be a tool. It's
- 3:59not there to replace anything, but really it
- 4:02should be enhancing your work.
- 4:04So if your IT team
- 4:06can get to know
- 4:08what your needs are, and I'm not talking
- 4:10about your technical needs, but how do you
- 4:13serve your patients and how do we get
- 4:16your IT
- 4:17processes to fit seamlessly?
- 4:20We have this really nice
- 4:22marrying of the two different sides, and it
- 4:24helps everybody out.
- 4:26So
- 4:27going back,
- 4:28I think my number one thing that I
- 4:31would say is important
- 4:33would be to
- 4:35just immerse yourself in what you are doing
- 4:38for your end users.
- 4:40Ask the questions,
- 4:41go in shadow if you can,
- 4:43and try and figure out what the need
- 4:46is,
- 4:46not just what can the system do, but
- 4:49how can we make the system work for
- 4:51you.
- 4:52But but that point on on being totally
- 4:55connected to the end user,
- 4:57the actual user of the technology,
- 4:59whether it's EPIC, whether it's LeanTusk's technology,
- 5:02the IQ for impatient flow, whatever it is,
- 5:05that is so important because you see so
- 5:07many people who's just historically in IT
- 5:10that almost thought they were in a silo,
- 5:12and that silo is not meaningful unless it's
- 5:14really connected to the end user.
- 5:16Can you take a moment, Ashley?
- 5:18Is there a moment
- 5:19where where that really stood out, where that
- 5:22concept being really end user connected,
- 5:25really
- 5:26showed showed importance?
- 5:29Yeah. For sure. We have seen this probably
- 5:32most prevalently in our implementation
- 5:34of lean toss.
- 5:36Toss. So,
- 5:37as we were doing discovery with my background
- 5:40in IT and knowing the epic systems,
- 5:43as we started meeting with our end users
- 5:45to discuss
- 5:46what were our biggest opportunities,
- 5:49We had to tie that back because you
- 5:50really you start becoming a translator for these
- 5:53services. So you have one system that's connecting
- 5:56to another, you have data that's being ingested
- 5:59constantly, and you have to really know where
- 6:01it's coming from and you have to know
- 6:03the workflows that drive
- 6:05that documentation.
- 6:06So
- 6:07Epic is our source of truth system. That's
- 6:09where we do all the bulk of our
- 6:11documentation.
- 6:12But LeanTos is wonderful in the fact that
- 6:14it surfaces all of that in a big
- 6:16picture way. So it's great for your managers.
- 6:19It's great for your clinical leaders that really
- 6:21need to think about that big picture.
- 6:24And looking at the numbers was just one
- 6:26piece of the puzzle.
- 6:27So
- 6:28whenever we started first getting that data over,
- 6:31we started looking at it and say, well,
- 6:33this doesn't make sense. We hear anecdotally about
- 6:35all of these barriers that are occurring,
- 6:38but we're not seeing anything in the data.
- 6:41And it didn't really match what we were
- 6:43expecting to see. And that's whenever we had
- 6:45to start kind of reverse engineering and say,
- 6:47okay. Where is this data supposed to be
- 6:49coming from? Go and check our source stem.
- 6:52Okay. We went and checked the source system
- 6:54and we said,
- 6:55okay. Well, there's stuff that's populating.
- 6:58And whenever it does populate, it comes over,
- 7:01but why isn't it populating all the time?
- 7:03And that's when we actually went several steps
- 7:06back and we started shadowing and sitting with
- 7:09our end users and saying, hey.
- 7:12I noticed that you didn't document this over
- 7:14here. You documented it in this place instead.
- 7:16Can you talk me through that purpose?
- 7:19So
- 7:20by digging into that, we were able to
- 7:23not just
- 7:24validate the data
- 7:26and really give us some meaningful metrics in
- 7:28what it actually is tied to, but we
- 7:30were able to discover opportunities within
- 7:33our workflows on our clinician side. We were
- 7:35able to discover opportunities to correct within our
- 7:38EHR system to say this would be an
- 7:40easier workflow.
- 7:42Let's clean this up a little bit. And
- 7:44so now we have
- 7:46a great representation
- 7:47of what is actually occurring on the floor.
- 7:51And all of that is tying together, and
- 7:53now as leaders, we're able to look at
- 7:55that data
- 7:56and make actionable decisions
- 7:59that are impacted
- 8:01directly by what we are doing. It's very
- 8:04correlated,
- 8:05and that was to me the biggest thing
- 8:08that we have been able to accomplish
- 8:10by having this
- 8:12collaboration between our IT operations and clinical folk.
- 8:16Thank you. And that's just a great example
- 8:18of where things can go very right
- 8:21if you get that integration correct and where
- 8:23they could really struggle if they don't. So
- 8:25I think that is so important, and I
- 8:27love that.
- 8:28Talk for a second. University Health is in
- 8:30it is in its first year
- 8:32since going live with IQ for inpatient flow.
- 8:36What have you learned about improving patient flow
- 8:38now that your past go live?
- 8:40And what parts have been transformative so far
- 8:43or the most transformative? What have you had
- 8:44the biggest impact so far?
- 8:47Well,
- 8:47I would say our biggest impact would probably
- 8:50be
- 8:51just in the transparency
- 8:53that Wing Tsots has been able to provide
- 8:55our group.
- 8:56As we mentioned before,
- 8:58documentation
- 8:59is happening in Epic, but that is I
- 9:01think of Epic as more of a a
- 9:02tool where people are doing the documentation that
- 9:05are taking care of the patient directly.
- 9:08If you need to start making decisions and
- 9:10actions and looking at how all of these
- 9:12things tie together,
- 9:14LeanTos
- 9:15is fantastic
- 9:16at taking all of that data, putting it
- 9:18in a way that puts your most important
- 9:21pieces in the forefront.
- 9:23And by that, I mean, they're surfacing those
- 9:25barriers that we are encountering
- 9:28in real time. They're surfacing
- 9:30the expected data discharge so that we can
- 9:33plan more proactively. It's
- 9:35identifying
- 9:36patients that maybe could take an alternative route
- 9:39for discharge and they're going to our transitional
- 9:41care center, which is our discharge lounge. And
- 9:45we're saving bed minutes even if it's only
- 9:47an hour here or there,
- 9:49but ultimately,
- 9:50just the transparency
- 9:52and now being able to
- 9:54see everything that is going on as it
- 9:56relates to throughput
- 9:58has been eye opening.
- 10:00We have people talking.
- 10:02We have a push instead of a pull
- 10:04method. Now our house supervisors are calling proactively
- 10:08to say, hey. It looks like we're running
- 10:10into some issues over here. What can we
- 10:12do to help clear them up? Our EVS
- 10:15team has actually,
- 10:18really
- 10:19been excited because now they're also able to
- 10:22get into it and you wouldn't think so
- 10:23much. It's usually direct patient care
- 10:26that you think about having that impact. But
- 10:29the EVS team, something as simple as getting
- 10:32real time information
- 10:34in advance to them to say, hey. On
- 10:36this unit, it looks like we're gonna have
- 10:37quite a few discharges. Can we make sure
- 10:39that we have extra support to make those
- 10:41go smoothly? Can we get transporters involved so
- 10:44that they're ready to go and move our
- 10:46patients from the ED up to that floor
- 10:48as soon as possible?
- 10:50So
- 10:51summary of all the things that I just
- 10:53said is the transparency that it's able to
- 10:56provide us so that we can enhance our
- 10:58communication
- 10:59has really had the biggest impact.
- 11:02Thank you. And and and so critical
- 11:05for people to understand where there's openings, where
- 11:06there's not, how we move things along better,
- 11:08how logistics work better,
- 11:10and and just leads to a ton more
- 11:12efficiency, that transparency,
- 11:14and the ability to to, quite frankly, generate
- 11:16more revenues because there's better usage of operating
- 11:19rooms and procedure rooms and everything else.
- 11:22Talk for a second about sort of where
- 11:24have real time insights or predictive tools made
- 11:27the biggest difference in daily operations? Where do
- 11:30you see that biggest difference?
- 11:32So
- 11:33going back to the barriers, I think was
- 11:35the first huge win that we had whenever
- 11:38we went live in April.
- 11:40Before going live,
- 11:42we looked at our data, and I think
- 11:44even though we knew that there were barriers
- 11:46to discharge,
- 11:48they weren't being documented in a way that
- 11:50was visible to everybody that needed to be
- 11:52involved,
- 11:53and they were often just communicated verbally. So
- 11:56we knew, hey. This patient is waiting on
- 11:58a walker before they can go home, but
- 12:00that really wasn't documented in a way that
- 12:03other people could step in and help.
- 12:05So
- 12:06I think we went from documenting one to
- 12:09two barriers a week to over 500
- 12:11a week just in the first month.
- 12:14And talk about eye opening.
- 12:16I think immediately
- 12:18as we went through our daily huddle at
- 12:2009:30, we could start talking through those barriers
- 12:23and actually having ownership conversations.
- 12:26So,
- 12:27we could say, hey. This has a barrier.
- 12:30Maybe the the physician hasn't had a chance
- 12:32to do their med rec because they're waiting
- 12:34on something.
- 12:35We were able to assign ownership to say,
- 12:38you
- 12:39need to call the physician and find out
- 12:41when that's going to be done.
- 12:43If we needed to coordinate,
- 12:45with PT and OT to do a final
- 12:47eval for some reason,
- 12:49we could do that. If we are waiting
- 12:51on an MRI read,
- 12:54we could reach out. We had all the
- 12:56stakeholders involved to be able to say, we
- 12:58have it documented. This is what we're waiting
- 13:01on. What can you do to help us
- 13:02in your area to move this along?
- 13:06So having the documentation
- 13:07there
- 13:08was great. And then
- 13:10I will also touch on that transitional care
- 13:13center,
- 13:14that discharge lounge.
- 13:16We were, for the first time, able to
- 13:18actually
- 13:19have criteria
- 13:21built into the system
- 13:22to where we could predict which patients would
- 13:24be most likely to go to the transitional
- 13:27care center. And we've increased our volume.
- 13:31That being said, there's always room for improvement.
- 13:33So that's one of the big things that
- 13:35we're looking into next is how do we
- 13:37use this system
- 13:38to now incorporate a new standard of practice?
- 13:41How do we transform into being reactive into,
- 13:45okay, now that we know this ahead of
- 13:47time, what can we do to plan? What
- 13:49can we do to
- 13:50prepare patients for
- 13:52the TCC?
- 13:54There have been so many benefits to having
- 13:57the real time insights.
- 13:59It's transformed us from being able to fight
- 14:02fires every day to go to the source
- 14:04of the fire and put it out because,
- 14:06before it becomes a fire.
- 14:09No. And and I love that. And and
- 14:10pretty soon, we'll ask you, what's coming next
- 14:12for University Health? And and where do you
- 14:14see the partnership with lean test evolving to
- 14:16in your needs and and and as your
- 14:18needs
- 14:19continue to scale and continue to get larger
- 14:21and larger?
- 14:22Before I ask you that, you also opened
- 14:24a new command center in November.
- 14:27How is this command center what does that
- 14:29command center look like, and how has that
- 14:31shifted the way that teams coordinate?
- 14:34And what has helped strengthen sort of cross
- 14:36functional buy in
- 14:37to to use of some of these operational
- 14:39changes and the use of the command center?
- 14:41What does that look like? And how is
- 14:43that shifted how teams coordinate?
- 14:45Yeah. The so the command center, it's kind
- 14:48of like a Cinderella story if I could
- 14:51if I could speak frankly.
- 14:53We actually
- 14:54I believe three years ago now, we opened
- 14:57up our women and children's tower. So
- 14:59we moved all of our previous women and
- 15:01children's units.
- 15:03So
- 15:04what we did was we took our 5th
- 15:07Floor NICU in one of our towers
- 15:09and we gutted it to basically,
- 15:13turn it into a command center. We had
- 15:15to run all new data.
- 15:17We had to get it ready. We had
- 15:18to put carpet in. We had gas lines
- 15:20that we had to cap all the way
- 15:22back to the wall. So it was a
- 15:23major
- 15:24construction
- 15:25process,
- 15:26and now we have this beautiful command center.
- 15:30And within that command center, we have a
- 15:32core area that houses our bed planners, our
- 15:35house supervisors.
- 15:36We have
- 15:37representatives from EVS and transport that are involved.
- 15:40We're working on getting, a physician of the
- 15:43day role to step in.
- 15:45We also have our transfer center, our patient
- 15:48placement area
- 15:49off to one side of that. So it's
- 15:51an open it's a big open area, so
- 15:53we can easily get back and forth to
- 15:55them if we need to communicate quickly.
- 15:57We are also working on, our stars as
- 16:00our float pool nurses,
- 16:02and their staffing office has moved up there
- 16:04so we can start to balance our resources.
- 16:08And in that command center, the main area
- 16:11has 10 full screen monitors that are constantly
- 16:14displaying
- 16:15current real time status of what's going on
- 16:18in our system.
- 16:20We opened
- 16:21yes. Just it feels like it was yesterday,
- 16:23but honestly, it's probably been about three weeks.
- 16:25It's been,
- 16:27a very fast paced implementation of that.
- 16:30Biggest thing right off the bat, once again,
- 16:32is EVS.
- 16:33Having them there, I believe they told me
- 16:36preliminarily that they've already carved ten to fifteen
- 16:39minutes off of their average turnaround time for
- 16:42bed cleans.
- 16:43Still gotta validate that data, but it the
- 16:46fact that people can feel it is really
- 16:48what makes a difference.
- 16:50Our,
- 16:51how supervisors now have several reports that they
- 16:54look at every day,
- 16:55to kind of go over our quick wins.
- 16:58If we had to make capacity at the
- 16:59drop of a at the drop of a
- 17:01hat, where would our biggest opportunities be? And
- 17:04having that command center allows
- 17:06everybody to communicate those needs
- 17:09and has a central point of contact to
- 17:11kind of it really is like an air
- 17:13traffic control area that allows somebody with a
- 17:16big picture to step in and help make
- 17:19decisions to control the whole house.
- 17:21I mean, that's really amazing, the positives so
- 17:24far in that, and you could really see
- 17:26the changes. And I think it's really important
- 17:28for your operational teams, your clinical teams to
- 17:30see those changes to continue to buy in,
- 17:32and it becomes like a flywheel if it's
- 17:34going well where people see the changes and
- 17:36see the positive, then they're more vested in
- 17:38it and and more positive about the whole
- 17:40thing, I take it.
- 17:42Yes.
- 17:42We talk about this a lot of times,
- 17:45in our, like, leadership groups about
- 17:48it's very easy to become so metric focused.
- 17:51Whenever you throw numbers up on a screen,
- 17:54especially a lot of times they're color coded,
- 17:56so green means good, red means bad.
- 17:58And
- 17:59I think a lot of people, whenever you
- 18:01start putting those numbers in a spotlight, get
- 18:04really focused on the numbers and just making
- 18:07them go green.
- 18:08But it's a lot more than that.
- 18:11We could have a green metric
- 18:13or a good metric, I should say. But
- 18:15if your staff aren't feeling that and if
- 18:18they can't tie back
- 18:20what the data says to how they're feeling,
- 18:23it becomes really difficult to get that buy
- 18:25in or to continue that momentum.
- 18:28With Lane Tas, I think one of the
- 18:30first things that
- 18:33for me personally at least gave me this
- 18:35sense of, okay, we are actually impacting things,
- 18:38we are making a difference
- 18:40was whenever I talked to the head of
- 18:42our emergency department.
- 18:44And we were seeing that there was better
- 18:46movement,
- 18:48but what she told me, she goes, Ashley,
- 18:50I am so excited because we are actually
- 18:53starting to function like an ED again.
- 18:56They could feel it down in the EDU.
- 18:59As we were creating more movement up on
- 19:01the units, they could move their boarding patients
- 19:03up a lot faster,
- 19:05and it allowed them to breathe a little
- 19:08bit, honestly.
- 19:09And our median ED boarding time is kind
- 19:12of indirectly related
- 19:14to all the patient movement on the floor,
- 19:17but it was one of the biggest
- 19:19things that we saw
- 19:21right
- 19:21away.
- 19:22And not just saw it in the numbers,
- 19:25but to see it in how the staff
- 19:27are feeling and to have that relayed really
- 19:29tied it in and reinforce that what we're
- 19:32doing is
- 19:33first and foremost for our patients and then
- 19:36helping our staff feel that they can do
- 19:38their jobs more effectively and provide good patient
- 19:41care.
- 19:43That's fantastic. Literally fantastic.
- 19:45And, Ashley, take a moment. University Health at
- 19:48San Antonio
- 19:50is going through a growth phase. The system
- 19:52continues to grow.
- 19:54What's coming next for University Health, and how
- 19:56do you see your partnership with lean toss
- 19:59evolving as your needs and scale continue to
- 20:01grow and expand?
- 20:03We are on a path for growth, and
- 20:06it is coming at us fast. And we've
- 20:09known about it for a while, and I
- 20:11can tell you from an IT perspective, everybody's
- 20:13kind of like, oh my gosh. How are
- 20:14we going to do all of this in
- 20:15such a short amount of time? But
- 20:18I I feel confident that we'll we will
- 20:20be able to. So
- 20:22growth plans, we currently our main hospital, including
- 20:25our women children's tower,
- 20:27is a little less than a thousand beds.
- 20:30And then over the next two to three
- 20:32years, I say by the 2027,
- 20:34we are on track to have three other
- 20:37hospitals within the San Antonio area.
- 20:39These will be community hospitals.
- 20:41One of, the big things in our mission
- 20:43is always serving our community. So expanding our
- 20:46growth out
- 20:48to other areas within San Antonio because we're
- 20:50a pretty big
- 20:52physical city,
- 20:53so that more people have access.
- 20:55So we have those three new community hospitals,
- 20:58and with those, we'll probably be adding close
- 21:00to 600 beds.
- 21:02We are looking at this is the first
- 21:04time that we've ever had another hospital within
- 21:07our own system that we might have the
- 21:08ability to kind of move patients in between
- 21:11or more appropriately
- 21:13based off of acuity, put patients where the
- 21:16best
- 21:16care is possible or maybe closer to their
- 21:19families.
- 21:20So we are looking at all of that
- 21:22in relation to lean task. We're starting to
- 21:24work through
- 21:25our capacity protocols. We're starting to look at
- 21:28how are we going to connect all of
- 21:29these areas together. What is our escalation policy?
- 21:33What are our thresholds?
- 21:34And within all of that, we're also looking
- 21:36at all of our other IT systems to
- 21:38say, how are we going to grow this
- 21:41to where everything still talks really well to
- 21:43one another
- 21:45and supports each other so that we aren't
- 21:48building out silos of, well, this community hospital
- 21:51does it this way and our main hospital
- 21:53does it this way. We really wanna try
- 21:56and standardize as much as we can so
- 21:58that no matter where you go within our
- 22:00system,
- 22:01you can still expect the same level of
- 22:03care or quality level of care that you
- 22:06would get at our main hospital.
- 22:09Absolutely. Sounds like an amazing journey that University
- 22:12Health San Antonio is on. Simply remarkable. I
- 22:15I love your take on it. I love
- 22:17your constant ability
- 22:19to be a lifelong learner and connect dots,
- 22:22connect the IT to the users, the clinical
- 22:25staff,
- 22:26to procedure management, to predictive analytics, to the
- 22:29operating rooms. It's really remarkable leadership.
- 22:31Thank you so much for taking the time
- 22:33to join us today, in the Becker's Healthcare
- 22:35podcast. What a pleasure to visit with you.
- 22:37Thank you so much.
- 22:39Thank you. I really appreciate it. This has
- 22:41been great.