A real world example of how to improve operating room management and patient flow.

1. CASE STUDY ST. VINCENT’S HOSPITAL
B I R M I N G H A M , A L • S U R G I C A L S E RV I C E S
A N S W E R I N G T H E C A L L T O I M P R O V E S U R G I C A L S E RV I C E S E X C E L L E N C E
AT A G L A N C E Profile The team selected and implemented
McKesson’s Pathways Healthcare
St. Vincent’s Hospital, the oldest hospital Scheduling™, Horizon Surgical
ORGANIZATION in Birmingham, Ala., is a not-for-profit Manager™, Horizon Expert
St. Vincent’s Hospital hospital that has been dedicated to the Documentation™ and Horizon Business
betterment of health in Birmingham for Insight™ solutions to form an unbroken
– Birmingham, Ala. more than a century. As a member of continuum of patient care technology
– 338 beds Ascension Health, St. Vincent’s is charged that stretched from scheduling to the
with responding to the health system’s recovery room. More importantly, the
Call to Action: to improve clinical St. Vincent’s team found that these
SOLUTION SPOTLIGHT excellence and safety; create innovative, solutions easily integrated with other
– Pathways Healthcare Scheduling patient-centered healing environments; McKesson and non-McKesson products.
and expand access to care for the uninsured
– Horizon Surgical Manager and underserved. With cost pressures “McKesson products help me run my
– Horizon Business Insight rising, the hospital also recognized that OR like a CEO by allowing me to look
it had to increase its profit margins to at data from all aspects of my business
– Horizon Expert Documentation maintain financial stability. — materials, physicians and patients,”
says Sherry Wininger, director, Surgery.
CRITICAL ISSUES Challenge
St. Vincent’s faced several challenges in the For example, information on surgery
– Low patient satisfaction scores
surgical services area. First, bottlenecks and patients is routed from Pathways
– A need to ensure patient safety delays in surgery inconvenienced patients, Healthcare Scheduling to Horizon
leading to lower than acceptable scores on Surgical Manager, enabling clinicians to
– Tight financial margins in
the hospital’s Press-Gainey surveys. perform real-time perioperative charting
surgical services at the point of care. Because patient
Second, while St. Vincent’s safety record
– Limited surgical throughput was in the upper percentile, hospital information flows seamlessly into other
executives recognized the need for a systems, St. Vincent’s personnel can
– High supply chain costs track anesthesiologists’ assignments
process to ensure that medication and
wrong-site surgery errors did not occur. in real time. Product integration with
RESULTS Third, caregivers lacked access to timely, the hospital’s existing ADT and point-
accurate and actionable information, which of-care applications improves surgical
– Improved patient satisfaction workflow by providing a legible, up-to-
slowed procedures and had a negative
scores by more than 13 percent date and reliable perioperative record.
effect on OR throughput and revenue.
– Prevented wrong-site surgery Finally, the hospital continuously stocked St. Vincent’s also has an interface to
a number of OR inventory items that were the surgical information system’s new
incidents
underutilized and occupying valuable space. anesthesia documentation application,
– Increased annual gross revenues giving the hospital a complete patient
from surgery by 40 percent Answers electronic record from scheduling
through discharge.
– Improved surgical throughput St. Vincent’s executives turned to
by 15 percent information technology for answers. Tim Stettheimer, chief information
– Eliminated more than $150,000
The hospital formed a multidisciplinary officer, says the power of integration sets
team to conduct a thorough selection McKesson’s solutions apart. “Together,
in unneeded inventory
process that emphasized the need for Pathways Healthcare Scheduling and
systems that would quickly and easily Horizon Business Insight are powerful
integrate with the hospital’s clinical data tools that accelerated our efforts to hit
repository, which already contained several our revenue goals while addressing the
years of patient information. challenges we faced in the OR,”

2. CASE STUDY
S T. V I N C E N T ’ S H O S P I TA L • S U R G I C A L S E R V I C E S
Stettheimer says. “Pathways Healthcare Although incidents of wrong-site surgery
Scheduling enables much greater were uncommon before St. Vincent’s
efficiencies in scheduling and related implemented Horizon Surgical Manager,
processes, which are continually improved no such incidents have been reported
“McKesson products help me through the use of Horizon Business since the system went live.
run my OR like a CEO Insight scorecards that identify physicians,
staff or procedures most likely to cause Finally, St. Vincent’s improved its
by allowing me to look schedule delays.” Press-Gainey average percentile values
at data from all aspects in ambulatory surgery by eight points —
Results a 13 percent increase.
of my business —
St. Vincent’s use of integrated technology Stettheimer and Wininger credit this
materials, physicians solutions helped the hospital turn its success to the performance of a highly
and patients.” challenges into opportunities for success. trained and well-qualified staff of
Gross revenues from surgery rose from clinicians who were able to take
$50.7 million to $72.5 million in three full advantage of McKesson’s integrated
years — an increase of more than technology solutions and support
40 percent. By optimizing scheduling services.
Sherry Wininger efficiency and OR utilization, St. Vincent’s
Director, Surgery was able to boost its surgical case load from
60 to 80 cases per day without adding
capacity. St. Vincent’s also increased the
total number of annual surgeries from
13,216 to 15,225 in three years — a
15 percent throughput improvement.
Through a Horizon Surgical Manager
inventory analysis, St. Vincent’s
immediately identified $150,000 of
OR inventory that did not need to be
continuously stocked.
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