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Saint Thomas Health Services Partners With Curaspan on Patient Flow Initiative Resulting in Estimated Savings of Nearly $6 Million

Posted on: Friday, 12 June 2009, 16:27 CDT

NASHVILLE, Tenn., June 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Saint Thomas Health Services (www.sths.com), the leading faith-based health care system in Tennessee, can point to its leadership in addressing today's ever-more pressing mandate to drive down the costs of delivering health care. STHS has done so in part with the implementation of a new patient flow technology solution.

One solution deployed during an overall redesign effort of their Care Management program across three hospitals was Curaspan Health Group's secure, web-based eDischarge(R) software. STHS began this redesign process and soon added the eDischarge software. Eighteen months later, the system has achieved an estimated savings of $6 million in decreased length of stay.

According to Elizabeth Lemons, BSN, MBA, CPHQ, Vice President of Clinical Effectiveness at STHS, the partnership with Curaspan has helped reduce length of stay (LOS), improved work productivity, provided more efficient patient throughput, and created a seamless transition of patients to post-acute providers. "The length of stay (LOS) savings have been significant," said Lemons.

"After a review by our finance department, Saint Thomas Health System has reduced system-wide LOS from 4.57 at the end of fiscal year 2007 to 4.37 through the first eight months of fiscal year 2009.

"STHS turned to Curaspan because of its solid reputation, including being named Best Practice Solution for Patient Flow by the Health Care Advisory Board the past four years. Additionally, eDischarge leads its competitors in nearly every category used by KLAS to rate transition planning solutions. Other considerations which lead to the decision to implement eDischarge were its interoperability with our core HIS system and a track record of rapid deployment, less than two months on average, yielding a very timely return on investment," said Lemons.

According to Ginny Tacker, Director of Case Management at Saint Thomas Hospital, "In the current healthcare climate, there is a need to find smart business solutions to streamline patient throughput. Finding a solution that increases staff efficiencies has been a huge plus." The process of implementation and training of eDischarge across the system was accomplished in less than eight weeks. The training only required 2.5 hours of classroom for staff.

To have a customized Return on Investment (ROI) analysis prepared for your organization, visit Curaspan Health Group at Booth No. 2608 during HFMA's 2009 ANI: The Healthcare Finance Conference in Seattle, Wash. June 14-17.

Curaspan Health Group (www.curaspan.com) is a national provider of secure Health Information Exchange and Patient Transition software and services. The company's software and web-based services enable healthcare organizations to increase revenues, improve productivity, and reduce cost by eliminating the paper and manual workflow steps from the clinical and administrative responsibilities while ensuring regulatory compliance. The company's web-based applications are delivered as Software as a Service (SaaS) to its customers. Its flexible platform and interoperability with the leading HIS vendors (Meditech, McKesson, Cerner, Eclypsis, ACS-Midas+ and Epic) allow for a seamless integration and a rapid, cost effective deployment.

With its focus on customer support, client satisfaction, and strong ROI, Curaspan has realized an industry-leading 98% customer retention rate throughout its ten-year history. Curaspan's client base includes many of the leading health care providers in the country including New York Presbyterian Health System, Dartmouth Hitchcock Alliance, Johns Hopkins Health System, Partners Healthcare, Medstar Health System and Sentara Healthcare System.

Saint Thomas Health Services' regional health system consists of four hospitals - Baptist and Saint Thomas Hospitals in Nashville, Middle Tennessee Medical Center in Murfreesboro and Hickman Community Hospital in Centerville - and a comprehensive network of affiliated joint ventures in diagnostics, cardiac services and ambulatory surgery as well as medical practices, the Center for Spinal Surgery, clinics and rehabilitation facilities. STHS is a member of Ascension Health, a Catholic organization that is the largest not-for-profit health system in the United States.

SOURCE Curaspan Health Group

Source: PR Newswire

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