A world-renowned leader in pediatric care was planning to build a new facility and expand their existing downtown campus. While the hospital knew they were world-class in terms of clinical research and patient care, they realized that they had an opportunity to deploy innovative new technologies to enhance care and clinical decision-making,
improve the patient and family experience, and drive efficiency for their clinicians and staff. Impact Advisors was brought in to help define the vision and strategy for selecting the technology to deploy in the new facility. The hospital sought a trusted partner to ensure that the technology vision was grounded in the unique needs of their clinicians and pediatric patient population, quickly capture requirements, and set up a process for clinicians to give regular, hands-on feedback.
Identifying and Analyzing Opportunities for New Technology
The Impact Advisors team spent significant time shadowing physicians, nurses, and staff around the clock and listening to understand their processes and workflows. The goal was to identify “pain points” and opportunities to improve patient outcomes, offer digitally enabled experiences where it makes sense to, and drive better efficiency for clinicians and staff. Overall, Impact Advisors identified and categorized over 100 opportunities. The next step was to hypothesize which technologies would best address the identified pain points. Leveraging the team’s knowledge of industry and technology trends, vendors and solutions, and the client’s current inventory of systems, Impact Advisors developed a baseline list of 8 technologies capable of accomplishing the organization’s high-priority transformations. These included virtual collaboration and consultation tools, remote patient monitoring, proactive risk management solutions, delivery robots, and voice-driven applications.
Creating a "Real-World" Test Environment
The next critical phase was to test the technology hypotheses and, where relevant, identify requirements for choosing among available vendors and solutions. Impact Advisors
partnered with hospital stakeholders in Facilities, IT, and Biomed to build “mock-up” patient rooms, nursing stations, and procedural units that reflect the future design of the new tower. The Impact Advisors team facilitated the procurement and installation of technology to create a “real-world” environment for clinicians and staff to use the solutions and provide feedback. The high-fidelity mock-up space was deliberately built on campus so clinicians and other staff could easily visit. To date, Impact Advisors has brought over 160 of the hospital’s clinicians and staff into the mock-up rooms. A key outcome has been the validation of Impact Advisors’ technology hypotheses and an index of core clinical requirements to be used for vendor RFPs.
Positive Impact
The new technologies planned for the facility will help increase clinician efficiency, drive better experiences for patients and their families, improve staff safety, and consolidate meaningful data into timely and actionable insights. The project generated genuine excitement and appreciation for the opportunity to collaborate and help guide decisions impacting the future of the facility, staff, and patient care. Clinicians and hospital leaders alike have commented:
“I feel a sense of confidence that the voice of the clinicians will be critical as we make technology decisions…”
“Thank you for starting this process early. It feels like we have time to get this right…”
“It has been so helpful to look outside the walls of the hospital and introduce us to technology that may help us work more efficiently for our patients.”
The hospital now possesses the necessary foundation and momentum to begin implementing innovative technology solutions within its current facilities. This readiness paves the way for integrating advanced systems and tools, ensuring that both clinicians and staff can experience meaningful improvements in their daily workflows even before the new tower is built.