Saint Barnabas First In The State To Use New Electronic Admission System To Reduce Delays

Maria Lombardo, Director of Operations, reviews the Electronic Bed Tracking System

Saint Barnabas Medical Center - one of the busiest hospitals in the state - is the first and only hospital in New Jersey to install a state-of-the-art electronic
admission system that eliminates unnecessary paperwork, increases efficiency and drastically reduces the time it takes for patients to be admitted. "The whole idea of this new system is to streamline the patient admission process and allow us the ability to view the bed and patient status from one central location," said John F. Bonamo, M.D., Executive Director for Saint Barnabas Medical Center. "We are finding that this system is greatly improving physician and patient satisfaction as well as staff morale."

With more than 40,000 inpatient admissions and 60,000 Emergency Department visits annually, it is extremely important for the admission process to run smoothly with the least amount of delays as possible.

The Electronic Bed Tracking System works by funneling requests for patient beds into the Bed Board Management Department where two 50-inch color-coded plasma screens illustrate the up-to-the-minute status of the 645-bed hospital. The beds occupied by men are blue. Beds to be filled by women are pink. Meanwhile, a green bed means that the bed is being cleaned and should be ready for assignment. Requests for patient beds can come from the Emergency Department, physicians' offices, other hospitals, or internally from one unit to another. Housekeeping, the Emergency Department and the Admitting Department are all connected in order to make discharges and admissions run like clockwork.

"Many times when patients were directed to the hospital from a physician's office they would come in through the Emergency Department where they did not really belong," said Dr. Bonamo. "Now we are able to prioritize this type of admission and the patient does not have to ever step foot in the Emergency Department."

"The whole idea of this new system is to streamline the patient admissions process..."

Before the new electronic admission system was installed, it could take two to three hours for a patient to be assigned a bed. That time has been cut in half. It used to take three or four telephone calls to determine where a patient should be placed and communicate the bed assignment to the requesting department. Now it takes only one. And computers and high-tech electronic equipment now replace the reams of paper used to track up to 750 patients each day who are admitted or discharged from the hospital. Although the paper approached worked, it was not the most efficient process, Dr. Bonamo said.

"This system provides on demand access to real time reports which helps managers identify issues and bottlenecks so they can be addressed before they hinder effectiveness, productivity and timely care of patient," said Dr. Bonamo. "It also gives managers the opportunity to check the patient census quickly in order to better predict staffing requirement." There are 33 hospitals in the United States using the electronic admission system. Saint Barnabas Medical Center began using the system in April and there are plans to install it throughout the Saint Barnabas Health Care System's nine hospitals.