UCSF Center for Healthcare Value - Caring Wisely 2.0

Crowd-sourcing innovative cost savings ideas from the front lines of care delivery systems

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The UCSF Center for Healthcare Value (CHV) called for the best ideas to reduce inefficiencies and health care costs as Phase 1 of the Caring Wisely initiative. The top 10 ideas at each site were selected as "Hot Spots" for Phase 2, which will be a call for proposals from within the UCSF and SFGH communities to address the areas of interest identified from the winning ideas in Phase 1.

Ideas (172 total)

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Utilize the Electonic Medical Record for Billing Purposes

Submitted by Molly Killion on February 5, 2014 - 5:17pm Last revised by Web Producer on March 13, 2014 - 12:43pm.
Idea Status: 
Review Complete

My suggestion is to have our Apex medical record talk to the billing department for nursing driven charges. Each day in Perinatal Services we lose a lot of money in revenue because nurses do not have time to act as billers. Nursing is busy providing excellent patient care then documenting this care but Apex will not talk to the charges department. The OB nurses then have to go back into the EMR to enter the charges they just documented about. As this activity is not critical for patient safety or patient care, it is often the piece that is not done in a timely manner or at all.

Reduce inefficiencies in paperwork, streamline blood transfusions

Submitted by Carla Kuon on February 5, 2014 - 5:01pm Last revised by Web Producer on March 13, 2014 - 12:43pm.
Idea Status: 
Review Complete

Hello,

in the CRI service, on 11 Long and 14 Long, patients admitted to the hematology-oncology service require a blood consent form to be filled out.   This form is usually filled out on the day ofadmission and filed in their physical chart. The form used is form #mz-1912Z, called "transfusion information form and consent for blood transfusion"

 

Save time needed to identify difficult organisms in Microbiology

Submitted by Yasmeen Khan on February 5, 2014 - 3:56pm Last revised by Web Producer on March 13, 2014 - 12:43pm.
Idea Status: 
Review Complete

Purchase of a Mass Spec would help in ID of difficult organisms freeing up a lot of time in the lab and possibly freeing up FTE for possible transfer to the new hospital.

 

The Mass Spec will increase productivity and the turn around time of Microbiology Results. 

 

 

Leveraged Purchasing Decisions Across Medical Centers

Submitted by Carl Solomon on February 5, 2014 - 3:35pm Last revised by Web Producer on March 13, 2014 - 12:43pm.
Idea Status: 
Review Complete

My observation, as a member of the Value Analysis Committee which is a multi-disciplinary committee charge with reviewing, trialing, and recommending new patient care products and supplies, has been that we could achieve better cost savings, uality, and value added service from our suppliers if there was a state-wide UC committee to review, test, and approve all patient care products and supplies. This would allow us to leverage our spend across medical centers and campuses, and ensure standardization across UC. 

Increase energy efficiency in SFGH buildings

Submitted by Nicole Ureda on February 5, 2014 - 3:08pm Last revised by Web Producer on March 13, 2014 - 12:43pm.
Idea Status: 
Review Complete

The old buildings (and many of the newer ones) on the SFGH campus are incredibly energy IN-efficient, and mostly for very basic structural reasons - windows that simply do not close completely, windows and doors that close but leak, etc.  Summer cooling and winter warming of areas with these problems, for one thing, must be expenisve.  Addressing these issues could potentially save a lot of money on annual overhead costs for the hospital, and the costs of repairs or building upgrades would not necessarily need to be passed onto hospital health consumers.

Using BIG DATA for patient care and waste reduction

Submitted by Gangadhar Puravant on February 5, 2014 - 12:43pm Last revised by Web Producer on March 13, 2014 - 12:43pm.
Idea Status: 
Review Complete

UCSF should pioneer in using BIG DATA to bring out the best innovative healthcare solutions.

It should leverage its proximity to the Silicon Valley to tap into its computing industry and come up with data which can help provide better solutions and reduce waste in the health care industry; and set up benchmarks in the process.

RN-to-MD communication (via phone number sharing)

Submitted by Lindsey Wu on January 31, 2014 - 11:33pm Last revised by Web Producer on March 13, 2014 - 12:43pm.
Idea Status: 
Review Complete

Nurses and physicians like to be on the same page when making our patient care plans, but sometimes we (speaking as a resident) fail to include nurses in prerounds, rounds, or afternoon check-ins just because we cannot get in touch with them. The vast majority of nurses at Moffit carry an ascom phone, but in order to find this number, you have to go to the hospital ward, find your patient and the name of the nurse caring for them, and then find that nurse's number on another board.

 

Reduce duplicate labs

Submitted by Lindsey Wu on January 31, 2014 - 11:01pm Last revised by Web Producer on March 13, 2014 - 12:43pm.
Idea Status: 
Review Complete

In both the inpatient and outpatient setting, we often order labs that are indicated but tend not to change quickly over time. Often, if our patient has had these labs drawn recently, we may not need to repeat it.

 

Specimen Labeling Error Reduction Project

Submitted by Traci Hoiting on January 31, 2014 - 7:45pm Last revised by Web Producer on March 13, 2014 - 12:43pm.
Idea Status: 
Review Complete

This idea is applicable to UCSF Medical Center.  Specimen labeling errors are a significant patient safety risk in addition to causing increased costs and clinician and patient dissatisfaction.  Specimen mislabeling is due primarily to human and system errors.  Through the use of Lean/Six Sigma methodologies this project is aimed at identifying process defects and testing and implementing process and technology improvements.

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