“Once you’ve completed your step in the specimen journey, the app automatically sends an alert to the next person down the line letting them know where it is.” But again, says Dadlani, these changes in the process needed to be handled with care. “We were cautious about alert fatigue, as we didn’t want people to be getting so many that they become desensitized, which could then delay their response to critical notifications.”
Success in the lab and beyond
The solution is now live across all operating rooms and seven hospital systems, and is also being used by a large pool of lab team members and clinicians. Plus, since its deployment, there’ve been no lost specimens. By digitizing the specimen journey, they’ve improved turnaround times because of greater visibility, so everybody knows where each specimen is at any given time.
This has also improved coordination between different team members and built strong partnerships between these groups. “Armed with this data, it’s possible to identify other areas for improvement,” he says. “We’re now asking things like how can we improve patient throughput or speed up patient holding times and reduce readmissions. There are so many different areas where we can expand this program to solve some key challenges that every hospital system faces.”
