Livonia Outpatient Surgery Center

Situation

Livonia Outpatient Surgery Center in Livonia, MI is a state-of-the-art surgery center specializing in cataract and other eye related surgeries. With a case volume of nearly 500 surgeries per month, Livonia faced challenges keeping up with its paper medical records. Administrators at the ambulatory surgery center (ASC) specifically noted the inefficiencies of paper records, including:

• The inability to quickly access records for information;
• The costs associated with paper; and
• Incomplete charts.

At the end of each day, the nursing staff would dedicate up to two hours reviewing charts for the day’s cases, shuffling through paper trying to reconcile missing signatures and reassemble physical charts. Additionally, buying and stocking paper charts for 500 cases per month was costly.

Solution

To solve their issues, the administrators turned to SIS Charts™, a cloud-based electronic clinical documentation solution from Surgical Information Systems (SIS). SIS Charts is integrated with Livonia’s AmkaiOffice™ business management system and SIS Analytics™ business intelligence tool, both of which are also from SIS, providing a complete solution to help Livonia Outpatient Surgery Center thrive.

Because SIS Charts is delivered as a subscription-based service, Facility Administrator Laura Picano-Wilson, RN, CNOR, CAIP said it was appealing from a financial standpoint. “SIS Charts helped us saved thousands of dollars by avoiding upfront capital expenditures for new servers and eliminating the need to hire specialized IT setup staff. We simply deployed workstations throughout our center, allowing our staff to adopt the new system immediately.”

Livonia configured SIS Charts to match its existing workflows, which helped from both a usability and training perspective, according to Picano-Wilson. “The way we have SIS Charts set up, it is specific to what the nurse is doing at that moment, which makes it easy for them to chart,” she said. “As a manager, I’m very confident that I could show somebody – even with no computer knowledge – how to work the system and be up and running in one day.”

Tish Burke, R.N., a Preop nurse at Livonia, agreed: “It’s set up exactly how we intake and discharge our patients. It goes in a step-by-step order, so you really don’t even have to think about what your next [documentation] step is. SIS Charts is easy, it’s fast, and it makes it very easy to retrieve information as well as put information into the computer.”

Results

Livonia quickly transitioned from paper to electronic documentation, and all clinical staff – including the doctors and Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) – have rapidly adopted the system. While the doctors plan to start charting their care in the future, they are currently using SIS Charts to view details about past surgical experiences, as well as allergy and medication information, which helps them prepare to see the patient. The CRNAs are charting their in and out times and ASA scores. “The staff absolutely loves the SIS Charts clinical documentation system,” Picano-Wilson commented.

The end of day process also has improved because multiple people can be documenting in a patient’s chart at the same time, enabling the nurses to review and complete their section of the chart for each of their patients. A completion percentage bar at the top of the record shows if the chart is complete or missing documentation, which speeds up the process.

With SIS Charts, Livonia can ensure chart completion for each case in a fraction of the time. This has not only allowed staff to reallocate their time towards direct patient care; it’s also enabled Livonia to increase their case volume. Nursing resources are better used to support clinical interventions, conduct pre-op and post-op follow-up, and manage the arrival times for the next surgical day.