Practice Unite Helps Inspira Health Network's Vineland Hospital Increase HCAHPS Scores By 26% As Part Of The Quiet Hospital Initiative

Practice Unite, Futura Mobility and Pursuit Health Advisors deliver a mobile communications solution that reduced overhead paging leading to increased patient satisfaction

Practice Unite, a leading mobile health solutions company, and Futura Mobility, a specialist IT services company, recently announced that Inspira Health Network has unveiled the results of its Quiet Hospital initiative, demonstrating a 26 percent increase in its HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) scores for hospital quietness across at its Vineland hospital.

Inspira Hospital Network (IHN), consisting of three medical centers and more than 60 locations in New Jersey, partnered with Practice Unite, Futura Mobility and its implementation arm, Pursuit Health Advisors, to improve communications, speed up workflows, as part of its Quiet Hospital program. Inspira saw an opportunity to improve scores measuring noise in their hospitals, which were affected in part by a high volume of overhead pages. By implementing Practice Unite’s communications solution, Inspira was able to eliminate this disturbance to patients. The solution was first deployed at its Vineland location. Overhead pages were cut from 150 a day to only 3 overnight! Patient satisfaction scores for quietness increased by 26 percent as compared to the prior twelve months. This solution was subsequently deployed at its other locations and initial scores are also trending upwards.

Under the Affordable Care Act, patient satisfaction has become even more important. Having a low patient satisfaction or HCAHPS scores can directly impact the financial operations of a healthcare organization as well as its reputation in the community. Over the last year, Inspira’s IT team has been a key part of the healthcare systems Quiet Hospital Initiative that will help to create a better experience for patients in its hospitals.

“We always strive to provide a great patient experience at Inspira,” said Tom Pacek, chief information officer, Inspira Health Network. “It was clear that we needed to reduce the number of overhead pages in our three main facilities. The problem was that our nurses had become dependent on this system to reach physicians. Practice Unite, Futura Mobility and Pursuit Healthcare worked with our IT team to design an innovative solution that has allowed us to all but eliminate overhead paging. This made an immediate impact that is already showing up as increased HCAHPS scores.”

The Practice Unite solution makes it easy for nurses to reach physicians. They send a secure text from their desktop to a secure mobile app on the physician’s phone. The physicians call the nurses back directly by clicking on the message which routes automatically to the nurses at their assigned extension. These extensions can change on a daily basis. The Practice Unite app makes it simple for the nurse to change this daily.

“The impressive increase in patient satisfaction survey results that Inspira has experienced is a direct result of the innovation and creative implementation of our solutions that can be truly customized to meet different hospital, physician and patient needs,” said Adam Turinas, chief executive officer, Practice Unite. “This initiative is part of a long-term roadmap with Inspira to help them improve a wide range of workflow challenges that will help Inspira with its transition to the new model of Value-based care.”