How can the digitalization of on-call lists better meet the needs of patients? It was to answer this question that, Julien Pierard, project manager for the medical department at the CHC care network, teamed up with Marie-Claude Messier, Vice-President of International Development for PetalMD, at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s HIMSS Liège 2019, which took place in Belgium from April 1st to the 3rd, 2019.
Organized by HIMSS Europe in collaboration with the Liège CHU, the HIMSS Liège 2019 is a key event for digital health in Belgium. In order to keep on top of the latest technological solutions dedicated to optimize the patient experience, attendees participated in several workshops on the theme of How to Better Connect Patients and Hospitals?. One of the workshops was about the digitalization of on-call lists in the CHC care network.
“By optimizing physicians’ time, we make them more available for patients.” summarized Marie-Claude Messier before numerous managers and health professionals. She then turned over the microphone to Julien Pierard, who explained the many challenges faced by their healthcare network.
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The CHC decided to take on the challenge of eliminating as many paper processes as possible, starting with the management of on-call schedules. Mr. Pierard explained why this process was complex and illustrated how it could affect the care offered to patients.
“Each medical service was producing their own on-call schedules, compiling the information, then manually sharing them with all the other sites. There was a lot of data manipulation. A physician could change the on-call schedule or contact information, without this information necessarily being passed on to the other hospital sites that were affected by the change.” explained the CHC care network project manager.
A document regrouping the needs of the network was then produced by the management team. The main objective was to have easy access to accurate and up-to-date information about on-call duties, notably to guaranty patient safety. Indeed, the more accurate information is easily accessible, the fewer communication steps are needed to reach the on-call physicians, which reduces the risk of complications for patients.
It was while seeking a computerized solution adapted to the needs outlined in the document produced by the management team, that the CHC care network discovered the Web platform developed by the Canadian leader in digital health, PetalMD.
After listing the features of Petal On-Call used by the CHC care network, including the ability of healthcare providers to make on-call shift swaps without having to go through a scheduler, Mr. Pierard expressed his organization’s satisfaction with the PetalMD solution.
"The solution had a greater impact than we thought it would have. Today, each medical department produces their own on-call schedules in PetalMD, then they distribute them directly through the platform. This means that all the manual processes between the offices of the different services and the main administration have been eliminated. No more faxes, emails, paper, PDF, telephone or oral communications; everything is accessible directly through the platform."
Julien Pierard,
Project Manager for the Medical Department of the CHC Care Network
PetalMD was pleased to collaborate with the CHC care network at this event to show how digitizing on-call schedules can improve patient safety and the quality of care offered. The key was to ensure accurate information concerning on-call schedules across a network of 6 hospitals and other health facilities.
The PetalMD team would like to thank Julien Pierard for taking the time to deliver this valuable testimonial, as well as Dr. Quentin Dulière, assistant medical director of the CHC care network, for his collaboration in producing the case study. Finally, we would like to thank HIMSS Liège 2019 for organizing this wonderful event.
The CHC care network collaborated with PetalMD to produce a case study of how the organization has optimized and modernized their on-call management processes with the Petal On-Call solution. Feel free to download the document from the link below.