Use of beacon technology has led to improved metrics and patient outcomes as well as reduced costs and decreased lengths of stay at this hospital unit.

Special Care Providers (SCP) delivers care to catastrophically ill and ventilator-dependent patients within a contracted unit at a large teaching hospital. But this patient population often has poor outcomes, care is expensive, the length of stay is frequently quite long, and readmissions are frequent.

In an effort to improve patient outcomes, SCP partnered with Centric Consulting’s Miami team and National Healthcare practice to implement a so-called “high-touch” multi-disciplinary model of care that uses beacon technology to monitor staff interaction with patients, encouraging and rewarding staff for quality patient care time. Since its launch in late 2016, the project has already led to positive results.

“Physicians intuitively know that multidisciplinary care improves outcomes, but this project reinforces that feeling,” said Marcie Stoshak-Chavez, MD, National Healthcare Leader at Centric Consulting. “A data-driven approach combined with a true patient-provider relationship is the key to success.”

The in-hospital special care unit ensures adequate staff intervention by monitoring time and impact of patient care using low-energy, Bluetooth-enabled beacons embedded on the badges of team members who deliver intensive patient care.

Built on the AWS platform, we leveraged Kinesis for its ability to process high volumes of streaming data from the sensors. The Docker and Couchbase components were hosted on Amazon Lightsail.

This non-intrusive technology ensures all practitioners are hyper-aware of patient interaction time by providing alerts when nearing or exceeding the designated amount of time. It allows management and staff alike to intervene quickly to ensure the best possible outcomes. Another benefit: SCP can analyze the data to determine
the best mix of interventions.

So far, SCP has seen encouraging results from use of BlueBeak’s beacon technology, including improved metrics, patient outcomes and quality of life as well as reduced costs and decreased lengths of stay:

  • Ventilator weaning rates have exceeded 80 percent (much higher than the national average)
  • Decannulation rates have exceeded 63 percent
  • Subsequent discharges to home have increased by nearly 400 percent
  • Readmission rates have been significantly reduced for SCP’s partner hospital

Both management and staff have embraced beacon technology, which has led to improved provider and patient (caregiver) satisfaction.

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About Centric Consulting

Centric Consulting is a business consulting and technology solutions firm providing full-service consulting services. Our expert consultants help clients tackle their toughest business challenges with innovative, balanced, and measurable solutions. We understand that healthcare institutions are continually looking for ways to improve care, streamline processes, reduce costs and share information more effectively across the continuum. We use this tension to provide clients with creative solutions through innovative planning, process improvements and use of information technology.

Our National Healthcare Practice delivers these services through a combination of clinical and business operations and process management solutions. We bring technology to the point of enabling the process of care and business operations.

With more than 700 employees in 13 cities in the U.S. and India, Centric is known for helping clients drive operational efficiency, improve customer service, and increase profitability. Our company was founded in 1999 and is privately owned.

About Special Care Providers

For 25 years, Special Care Providers of America has partnered with acute hospitals to provide aggressive multi-disciplinary rehabilitation, catering to the unique needs of the ventilator-dependent, catastrophically ill or medically complex patient.

The Special Care Unit Team, managed by Special Care Providers, provides patients with the best opportunity for ventilator weaning, while safely keeping the patient in the acute care setting. By doing so, Special Care Providers provides its host hospital with incremental revenue, improved core measures, reduced readmissions and shorter lengths of stay per episode.