March 13, 2019 - Scripps Health has turned to unified communications provider Avaya to bring its diverse systems into a comprehensive health IT integration platform.
Scripps Health chose the Avaya IX Attendant Solution for Healthcare to give its personnel the ability to manage, locate, and communicate with staff and departments, patient rooms, and codes from a single platform.
San Diego-based Scripps Health treats more than 750,000 patients annually through 3,000 affiliated physicians and more than 15,000 employees among its five acute-care hospital campuses, home health care services, 27 outpatient centers and clinics, and hundreds of affiliated physician offices.
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“Patient experience is top of mind at Scripps Health. Avaya’s healthcare solutions allow us to streamline communications, both between members of our care team and between the care team and the patient, allowing us to improve our business operations while improving our patient experience,” explained Scripps Health Senior Director for Enterprise Architecture Christian Aboujaoude.
“One of the exciting aspects of our partnership with Avaya is championing innovation by working closely together to define the requirements and participate in the development process of their new Avaya IX Attendant for Healthcare,” Aboujaoude told HealthITInfrastructure.com .
“Our internal business partners are heavily involved in this development process, and they are witnessing their ideas transform and come to life in the software. This is one of the most rewarding experiences any IT professional can hope for,” he added.
Avaya said that its unified communications platform provides Scripps Health with the following capabilities:
Web-based environment can search departments, staff, and patient bed assignments from a single interface to determine which doctors and nurses are available at any given moment and locate patients.
Hospital staff can set up on-call schedules plus identify and resolve schedule gaps with click-to-call, text, or email notification based on preferred methods of contact.
Bed management and tracking includes point-and-click bed management rules and availability, preference setting for VIP and do-not-call patients, and physician instructions at the fingertips of the care team.
Incoming calls visually show details and contextual history, reducing the caller’s time in queue and helping to ensure the call is correctly routed the first time.
Staff are contacted over their media of choice, with more control and context over their availability, keeping them aware of their on-call obligations and improving responsiveness to patient and care team member calls.
Streamlined workflow provides closed loop communications to help ensure that codes are being addressed.
Communications platform integrates with Scripps Health's Epic electronic health record (EHR) systems, bed management, and Internet of Things and security infrastructure.
“Our main goal this year is to innovate in the way we deliver healthcare. The Avaya communications platform allows us to improve collaboration among the care teams, and with our patients, resulting in improved, more efficient operations leading to a positive patient experience," said Aboujaoude.
"Avaya IX Digital Workplace solutions helps streamline operations and improve patient experience by getting patients connected with the right healthcare experts quicker and responding to queries with greater efficiency,” he added.
“We will pull schedules/availability from our EHR to help populate the on-call scheduling system,” he explained.
Avaya Senior Director of the Global Healthcare Practice Tara Mahoney observed: “A flexible communications solution is critically important to the successful digital transformation of health care systems, which are relied upon to provide life-saving care for patients. Avaya IX Attendant for Healthcare connects people with context they need to optimize operations and reduce risk. Improved communication will positively impact the efficiency of the organization, along with helping to improve the patient experience.”
Aboujaoude said that Scripps Health plans to deploy the Avaya IX Attendant Solution in March.
