How one Mississippi hospital pioneered a cross-departmental triage workflow in their facility by leveraging a mobile-first telehealth communications platform
BOZEMAN, Mont., May 24, 2021 — Pulsara, the leading telehealth and communication platform that connects teams across organizations, announced today that St. Dominic Hospital, located in Jackson, MS, has pioneered an innovative new triage protocol that uses Pulsara’s platform to improve care team communication and patient care. After initially embracing Pulsara for front-end stroke and STEMI care, the hospital recently saw an opportunity to further improve other cross-departmental workflows via the same mobile-first platform.
“We started using Pulsara not only for the stroke alert process but also for triaging patients beyond the emergency room,” said Crystal Scott, BS RT(R)(CT), of St. Dominic Hospital’s Comprehensive Stroke Center. According to Scott, the care teams wanted to find a way to free up beds in the ER and improve turnaround times in the process, a mission that was especially impactful in the midst of COVID-19, when available beds were at a premium. Improved turnaround times freed up ER space for more critical cases and freed up physicians to better support those patients.
“One of the great benefits of this system is not just the improved communication and getting the patients upstairs, but also that you have a nurse handing off to another nurse—an RN to RN handoff,” said Scott. “Also, our ICUs and floors, along with our Patient Access Center, are now using Pulsara so all care teams can be looped into the conversation about everything from where a new or current patient is going to key patient status updates. Using Pulsara in this way means patient information and care is streamlined and coordinated in ways we could not achieve before.”
As new patients come in or are moved to new rooms, this process can quickly become a challenge to manage on the level of assigning and alerting the accepting physician. St. Dominic’s has mitigated this by using Pulsara to communicate to the care teams who the accepting physician is and also directly alerting that physician. “This has been revolutionary for our teams and patients,” said Scott. “It has enabled us to streamline communication for the whole care of the patient. Patients are getting the care they need much faster than before—and care teams are better able to take care of each patient at every step of their recovery.”
“It is always exciting to hear about innovative new use cases like this example from St. Dominic’s, representing measurable improvements that directly impact people’s lives,” said Erich Hannan, Chief Technology Officer at Pulsara. “Improving the lives of patients and caregivers through innovative communication is our purpose at Pulsara. But it’s the talent of leading-edge care teams like St. Dominic that makes all the difference. Pulsara simply helps bring them together. We’re honored and excited to be supporting them and their community.”
ABOUT ST. DOMINIC’S
St. Dominic Health Services is sponsored by the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady and is a part of the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System. St. Dominic’s is more than just a hospital, it is a family of services focused on fulfilling a mission of Christian healing to those in need. St. Dominic Health Services, Inc. is the parent company for a large group of subsidiary organizations and programs dedicated to the same mission. These include St. Dominic Hospital, the Community Health Services Clinic, St. Dominic Medical Associates (physician network), New Directions for Over 55, MEA Clinics, The Club at St. Dominic’s, the School Nurse Program, St. Dominic’s Foundation, St. Catheri