Good communication will enable lower costs, better patient care and better patient outcomes and technology can facilitate that. Hi, I'm Mark Allen, I'm the Clinical Information Systems Manager for the Utah South Region and the Rural Region for Intermountain Healthcare. Intermountain is known internationally for its ability to be able to use clinical data to improve patient outcomes. So we have 22 hospitals across the state of Utah, one in Idaho, and we have over 300 clinics across the enterprise. And when you consider just the enormity of running a regional healthcare system there's a lot of data and information that needs to be stored and information that needs to be provided to the physicians and clinicians so that they can make good decisions. >> So Intermountain is a very transparent organization. We know that people perform better when they feel informed. Hi, I'm Janet Frank and I'm the Communications Manager here at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. We focus on physician communication even though a large percentage of them are partners versus employed physicians. So we see everybody on our team, employees, physicians, volunteers as well as part of our team and we want to keep them up to date with everything. >> Communication is very important and one of the key things to keeping everybody on the same page is to develop a good communication plan and to repeat a consistent message often and frequently. Hi, I'm Fritz Kron. I'm the Regional Director for Quality at Intermountain Healthcare in the Urban south region here, and one of the most exciting things that I get to do every day is to work with our teams and accelerate bringing best practices to our patients. Every region supplies a local representative. We are very fortunate in our ability to engage physicians and nurse leaders who are willing to spend their time participating in the committee meetings and networking with their peers throughout the system and we always recognize that it is a challenge to get the word out and we do that through meetings, we do that through talking points, we'll put flyers on bulletin boards. There's also some more formal documents called Care Process Guidelines and those are heavily researched documents that are available on the website. So we use a combination of methods to communicate what our goals are for that year. As a tertiary medical center at Utah Valley, many patients come up for higher levels of care. One of the advantages of the clinical programs is all of our providers understand our protocols and understand our practices, and so that when a patient needs to be referred to the tertiary medical center it really is a continuation of a care process model. One of the nice things is we do have an integrated longitudinal medical records system and that means that whatever is documented and whatever transpired at one medical center can be pulled up on the computer and can be seen at the other medical center. Part of our clinical program goals almost always involves patient education, because in addition to the providers, the physicians and the nurses and the laboratory support, as patients we're also very accountable for our health outcomes. We have standardized education and that allows us to deliver a consistent message. So when you're discharged from one facility we have a standardized brochure and teaching information that's given and again that information is available throughout the system, so that when the patient reports back to their primary care provider and appears to need a little reinforcement of the education or maybe has a knowledge deficit in a particular area and that happens, because when you're getting ready to be discharged you have so many things on your mind as a patient, you can't possibly comprehend everything. And so that provider in the hometown can also pull up the same information. And it's really very reassuring to patients because they actually see the same information and then it can help them ask us questions or ask the provider questions about a point that they didn't quite understand. (a) What is horizontal communication? (b) How is the horizontal form of communication more prominent in Intermountain Healthcare?
Good communication will enable lower costs, better patient care and better
patient outcomes and technology can facilitate that. Hi, I'm Mark Allen, I'm the
Clinical Information Systems Manager for the Utah South Region and the Rural
Region for Intermountain Healthcare. Intermountain is known internationally for
its ability to be able to use clinical data to improve patient outcomes. So we have
22 hospitals across the state of Utah, one in Idaho, and we have over 300 clinics
across the enterprise. And when you consider just the enormity of running a
regional healthcare system there's a lot of data and information that needs to be
stored and information that needs to be provided to the physicians and clinicians so
that they can make good decisions.
>> So Intermountain is a very transparent organization. We know that people
perform better when they feel informed. Hi, I'm Janet Frank and I'm the
Communications Manager here at Utah Valley Regional Medical Center. We focus
on physician communication even though a large percentage of them are partners
versus employed physicians. So we see everybody on our team, employees,
physicians, volunteers as well as part of our team and we want to keep them up to
date with everything.
>> Communication is very important and one of the key things to keeping
everybody on the same page is to develop a good communication plan and to
repeat a consistent message often and frequently. Hi, I'm Fritz Kron. I'm the
Regional Director for Quality at Intermountain Healthcare in the Urban south
region here, and one of the most exciting things that I get to do every day is to
work with our teams and accelerate bringing best practices to our patients. Every
region supplies a local representative. We are very fortunate in our ability to
engage physicians and nurse leaders who are willing to spend their time
participating in the committee meetings and networking with their peers
throughout the system and we always recognize that it is a challenge to get the
word out and we do that through meetings, we do that through talking points, we'll
put flyers on bulletin boards. There's also some more formal documents called
Care Process Guidelines and those are heavily researched documents that are
available on the website. So we use a combination of methods to communicate
what our goals are for that year. As a tertiary medical center at Utah Valley, many
patients come up for higher levels of care. One of the advantages of the clinical
programs is all of our providers understand our protocols and understand our
practices, and so that when a patient needs to be referred to the tertiary medical
center it really is a continuation of a care process model. One of the nice things is
we do have an integrated longitudinal medical records system and that means that
whatever is documented and whatever transpired at one medical center can be
pulled up on the computer and can be seen at the other medical center. Part of our
clinical program goals almost always involves patient education, because in
addition to the providers, the physicians and the nurses and the laboratory support,
as patients we're also very accountable for our health outcomes. We have
standardized education and that allows us to deliver a consistent message. So when
you're discharged from one facility we have a standardized brochure and teaching
information that's given and again that information is available throughout the
system, so that when the patient reports back to their primary care provider and
appears to need a little reinforcement of the education or maybe has a knowledge
deficit in a particular area and that happens, because when you're getting ready to
be discharged you have so many things on your mind as a patient, you can't
possibly comprehend everything. And so that provider in the hometown can also
pull up the same information. And it's really very reassuring to patients because
they actually see the same information and then it can help them ask us questions
or ask the provider questions about a point that they didn't quite understand.
(a) What is horizontal communication?
(b) How is the horizontal form of communication more prominent in Intermountain Healthcare?
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