Bethel Pointe Health and Rehabilitation Center, a skilled nursing facility in Muncie, IN, won gold in the Safety category in the Skilled Care track of the McKnight’s Excellence in Technology Awards competition. Bethel Pointe, a TLC Management community, is using Olio to improve their collaboration with their health system partners, empowering them to deliver better and safer care.
Below is the award application that won Bethel Pointe Gold:
1) Describe the history of this project. Be sure to note the technology applied or used.
Bethel Pointe is a skilled nursing facility located in Muncie, Indiana that is committed to the mantra of “Living Well.” Providing high quality, efficient and most importantly safe care is key to achieving patient wellness. As safety is of the utmost importance, Bethel Pointe recently looked at ways to improve and innovate to ensure each patient was being provided the best possible care. Bethel Pointe was first introduced to Olio by a referring physician entity, Central Indiana Orthopedics, for their patients with skilled services needs. Central Orthopedics, recommended Olio to Bethel Pointe as a means of improving collaboration between the two organizations, with a special emphasis on collaboration to improve patient safety and achieve the best possible patient outcomes. Olio’s collaboration platform allows health systems, physicians and post-acute providers to all come together in one digital environment to communicate and connect in real time on their patient’s condition. Olio enabled Bethel Pointe staff to collaborate with each other and staff at the hospital to ensure each staff member knows the most up-to-date information on each patient’s progress in order to provide the most successful care strategy. The more real-time communication and collaboration that can occur on a singular platform, the safer the patient ultimately is. The Bethel Pointe team submits progress logs for each of their patients to track progress on patients’ conditions, all team members involved in the patient’s care in and out of the SNF understand the unique care needs for each patient and intervene to get the best possible results.
2) How has the project contributed to the success of the organization within this specific category (“Safety”)? Please use specific data or metrics (500 or less words)
Bethel Pointe’s implementation of a technology solution to improve collaboration with referring acute-care partners has improved the safety for Bethel Pointe residents. A key feature of Olio that has helped Bethel Pointe improve safety of patients is the “Escalation” feature. This feature allows skilled nursing staff to ‘escalate’ a patient via a digital alert to the patient’s physician team so they can quickly intervene on behalf of the patient. This was recently utilized when a patient fell at the facility. Of course falls are an unfortunately common danger in senior or rehab populations. Because Bethel Pointe had Olio, staff were able to immediately escalate the fall through Olio and alert the physician team. Because the physician and their team found out in real-time, the patient was triaged in under eight minutes and avoided an emergency room visit and possibly a hospital readmission. Having a technological advancement that improves outcomes through enhancing safety has been an invaluable investment in helping Bethel Pointe residents “live well”.
3) Describe any obstacles the team had to overcome in relationship to this project. (300 words or less)
With any new change to staff routine comes obstacles. Training on Olio was crucial to the on-boarding and implementation of the technology so the Bethel Pointe team understood how this improved the workflow with their referring and collaborating providers. Usage has increased as time has gone on.
We’re thrilled Bethel Pointe is using Olio as a component of the incredible care they deliver their residents.