Baptist Heart Institute: Dedicated Cardiac Facility Provides Superior, Yet Cost-Effective, Patient Care
June 2003
Today, health care facilities must deal with a greater number of patients in a timely and cost-effective way. Reliable systems with integrated information technologies help ensure that physicians provide the best quality patient care while remaining cost effective.
Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis, with more than 25,000 surgeries and 120,000 outpatient visits a year, is one of Tennessee’s highest volume hospitals. Opened in 1979, Baptist serves western Tennessee, as well as northeastern Arkansas and northern Mississippi. Our first cath lab was installed in 1985, and the number of cardiac patients has steadily grown since that time. In September 2001, the entire cardiology department, including cath labs, cardiac surgery and angiography, was moved into a separate area on the hospital campus.
The Baptist Heart Institute, the Mid-South’s only comprehensive heart center, is designed to deliver comprehensive cardiac services in the most convenient way possible. A hospital within a hospital, the three-story, 165,000-square-foot facility encompasses an 80-bed cardiac medicine unit complete with five cath labs and 2 electrophysiology labs. Our cath lab staff of 42 team members supports nearly 30 physicians.
Prompt Service Means More Satisfied Patients
There are more than 7,000 cases and 10,000 procedures performed in the Baptist Heart Institute cath labs every year. We needed systems that would not have long stretches of downtime. Having a system down for even one day can cause weeks of backups and rescheduling of procedures, which is an issue for both patients and physicians. As our volume of patients swiftly and steadily grew, experiencing downtime with the systems became almost next to impossible to allow, so this became a top concern to address when we began upgrading the labs in 1994. We wanted to install equipment that would have a minimum of downtime, but still allow us to continue to offer quality patient care.
We chose to install systems from Siemens Medical Systems. Our Siemens cath labs have proven to be the workhorses of our department. Even though one Siemens lab is more than 8 years old, it performs as if is was new and it rarely ever needs to be repaired. Before moving to the Institute, the decision was made to upgrade with all new Siemens equipment, so five new labs were added. Additionally, the Siemens network, which stores our digital images and other patient data, is stable, and there is virtually no downtime. However, there does come a time when the equipment needs service or new parts.
Siemens UPTIME services have made dealing with servicing equipment easier and more efficient. By calling one phone number, staff can access a technical support team, request parts or receive applications support. In addition, the service center is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, meaning we can contact the center at the first sign of problems.
Access to Information
Our digital cath labs are connected to a Siemens ACOM network. As a result, images are enhanced, readily archived and easily accessed on physicians’ personal computers. Images are taken digitally in the labs and are centrally archived through the ACOM server, which holds the most recent cases on high-speed disks. The server is programmed to create space for new cases by regularly downloading older cases into the digital archive.
The ACOM network allows images to be simultaneously accessed via the server to the five PC workstations located immediately outside of each cath lab. Each station has full access to the most recent cases on the server, as well as to older cases stored in the archive.
After we realized the convenience of digital information, Baptist shifted to electronic charting. Instead of handwritten pages, we now use readable printouts from the Cathcor cath lab reporting system, giving clinicians more information up front and eliminating the need to review charts at a later time. The Cathcor also lets staff customize the patient database, which helps individual clinicians address specific needs. For example, we can ensure that each lab report needed for heart transplant patients, such as right heart pressures signals and EKG, is obtained.
Enhanced Efficiency and Patient Care
Siemens cath labs continue to have a positive impact on patient care and staff efficiency at Baptist. Staff does not need to run to the darkroom to get images processed, and much less time is spent on image storage, retrieval and management, giving staff more time in a clinical role with patients. Not surprisingly, the results have been enhanced department efficiency, cost and quality of patient care.
We now have faster turnaround times. Previously, our average turnaround time was 20 minutes per patient, and now it averages just 12 minutes. Physicians can complete patient consultations much sooner after the initial examinations. This makes for a better patient experience, as patients do not have to wait as long, and translates into greater cost efficiencies for the Institute.
By interfacing the images produced in the cath lab to the main hospital’s PACS systems, all images can be accessed in the OR suite by the surgeons. In addition, physicians can retrieve images from CDs during patient consultations in their offices in order to illustrate problems or abnormalities that may have been found.
Before the cath lab had exclusively Siemens equipment, we had to train all of our technicians on all of our different machines, which took longer and could cause confusion as the technicians moved from one system to the other. Now, training only needs to be done on the Siemens system, meaning shorter training times.
The Future of Cardiac Care
Effective patient management requires a wide array of information from multiple sources. At the Baptist Heart Institute, we are finding that the seamless integration of information is vital to the delivery of today’s cardiac care. We are now in our second year of operation. With the help of the latest technology, we’ve been able to provide comprehensive cardiac care to our patients in a relatively short period of time. We’re moving toward developing a system with Siemens that will help us to one day create a universal patient record for every patient at Baptist Heart Institute.
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