Covenant Health Improves Operating Room productivity and profitability with McKesson Horizon Surgical Manager

1. Case Study
Covenant Health
Improves OR Productivity and Profitability
At a Glance
with Horizon Surgical Manager
Organization
Covenant Health Covenant Health, a comprehensive Horizon Surgical Manager integrates
Knoxville, Tenn. health system with five acute-care with Covenant’s registration,
hospitals in eastern Tennessee, patient accounting, clinical nursing
– Five acute-care hospitals
wanted to ensure its caregivers documentation and materials
– Methodist Medical Center of
worked in unison. With disparate management systems, sharing data
Oak Ridge
processes impeding operational longitudinally across the continuum
– Fort Sanders Regional improvements, Covenant Health of care. “The patient doesn’t have
Medical Center implemented an integrated to repeatedly answer the same
surgery solution from McKesson. questions,” explains Rhonda
– Parkwest Medical Center
The decision not only improved Crabtree, Covenant’s Information
– Fort Loudoun Medical Center
communication but also increased Technology Business Consultant.
– Fort Sanders Sevier Medical revenue and improved OR (operating
Center room) capacity and throughput. “Before the patient finishes interop,
the preoperative record is available
Challenges for viewing. Clinicians in post-op,
Solution Spotlight
PACU and on the floor can access
Striving to consolidate processes,
– Horizon Surgical Manager
the OR record via Horizon Clinicals®
Covenant standardized master
– STAR Patient Accounting and the HorizonWP® Physician
files but found its facilities still
Portal.”
operated independently. Covenant
needed consistency in its surgery
Critical Issues
Crabtree notes that the integration
suites, its most profitable depart-
– Productivity hindered by lack of Horizon Surgical Manager with
ment. Variances in OR turnover
of standardization McKesson’s STAR Patient Accounting
rates, scheduling accuracy and
system allows the billing process to
– Lack of integration between staff cost per case affected
begin immediately. “Physician
surgery and other departments Covenant's productivity and
offices can go online, view the
revenue potential. Additionally,
– Inefficient scheduling processes
record and begin billing on the
different OR information systems
– Large variances between actual day of surgery, instead of waiting
existed across the enterprise.
and scheduled case time three days for paperwork.”
Covenant needed a solution that
– High room turnover rate would streamline processes and
Results
optimize productivity.
Covenant quickly realized improve-
Results
Answers ments across the enterprise, most
– Standardized OR information
notably at Methodist Medical
To improve data integration,
system and processes
Center. Previously an efficient
Covenant Health upgraded all
– Increased OR volume, adding ORSOS One-Call™ customer,
facilities to the Horizon Surgical
$1.5 million in annual revenue Methodist tightly scheduled cases,
Manager™ system. All of
overbooking by 10 minutes per case
– Accommodated more surgeons Covenant’s acute-care facilities
on average. With Horizon Surgical
without adding staff now work cohesively.
Manager, that variance is less than
– Boosted staff productivity
one minute.
– Improved resource utilization

2. Case Study
“Horizon Surgical Manager “Horizon Surgical Manager is offset times needed adjustment to
better than anything we could have improve efficiency,” she says.
is better than anything we imagined,” relays Crabtree. “We
can block time more accurately and Covenant is particularly pleased
could have imagined. . . .
drive our productivity up. Now we with the system’s preference
Now we can accommodate can accommodate more physicians card management tool, which
without having to add staff.” automatically recommends items
more physicians without to be added or removed based
She adds, “Methodist can on actual usage.
having to add staff.”
potentially schedule several
additional surgical cases per day, “I’ve never seen a system with an
which contributes to a $1.5 million out-of-the-box tool that’s this
Rhonda Crabtree increase in annual revenue.” robust as far as making predictive
changes,” says Crabtree. “The
Information Technology
Covenant soon began to analyze accuracy is really pretty amazing.”
Business Consultant average staff cost per case at Covenant uses Horizon Surgical
each facility, tracking significant Manager to track inventory, record
Covenant Health variances. “We use this data to supply use and forecast future needs.
ensure the proper skill mix is
available while bringing more The Patient Tracking module of
predictability to the cost and Horizon Surgical Manager
profitability of each case,” communicates case, patient and
Crabtree explains. room status, as well as staff roles
and locations. “Clinicians can see if
Using Horizon Surgical Manager, the next patient is in holding yet,”
Covenant measures the average reports Crabtree. “If a patient
time a patient spends in each phase hasn’t shown up at the hospital,
of care. “We can tell if patients are they can quickly reorder cases. It’s
spending too much time in the post especially effective for add-on
anesthesia care unit (PACU), which patients because it shows when
can produce a bottleneck that lab work is complete.”
ripples throughout the surgical
suite,” reports Crabtree. “We can Patient Tracking also eases waiting
anticipate and correct problems.” room anxiety by displaying the
patient’s progress on large-scale
With Horizon Surgical Manager, monitors for the family to follow.
Covenant analyzes turnover time by
quarter, month, room or doctor, as “Now everyone is truly working
well as by case type or procedure. together,” she says. “And we’ve
“A high turnover time for open- only scratched the surface of what
heart cases makes sense, but some Horizon Surgical Manager will do.
It’s an extremely powerful system.”
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