Sphere3’s Aperum^® technology improves patients’ hospital experience, at the point of care.

For decades, hospitals have sought feedback from patients through post-visit surveys, but the lag between patient stay, survey administration and final report did not provide the patient-centered reaction that hospitals wanted.

In an effort to identify patient experience and react to it before patients left the hospital, many hospitals implemented a practice called “leadership rounding.” This involved having unit directors, managers and charge nurses visit patients on a regular basis to identify areas of improvement.

When one health care executive was asked to describe “leadership rounding,” he likened it to a Forrest Gump box of chocolates experience. He did not know what he would get when he walked into a patient’s room. Would it be the dreaded hard candy or the dark chocolate with the soft caramel center?

This is the case for all leader rounds done on paper or with a traditional survey tool. They lack the collaborative ability to show real-time feedback from the patient alongside the behaviors the patient is exhibiting and how caregivers are engaging with patients.

Sphere3’s Aperum^® technology takes the guesswork out of rounding by automating the process on mobile tablets and aligning patient EMR and nurse call light data so that adjustments in care can be made prior to disharge from the hospital. This collaborative approach enables a more positive patient experience, in a safe and quality environment, by empowering care teams with meaningful information at the point of care.

Facilitating Patient Care and Leadership Collaboration

Here’s how Aperum^® works. Data is pulled directly into the rounding tool, so caregivers and leadership can see both verbal feedback from patients and their behavioral activity as tracked by the nurse call light, smart bed, real-time location sensors and cardiac monitoring.

The patient’s perception of their care, collected during leadership rounds, is compared to their behavior activity in the call light such as how often they are getting out of bed unassisted, how many times have they used their call light for water, or whether they had a critical event. Additionally, the Aperum^® platform is used to analyze caregiver interaction rates balanced with variable workload from patient-generated alarms. This allows the hospital to reallocate resources as needed to enable faster response.

Rod Corn, FACHE, vice president of strategic initiatives for Sphere3, uses the word “trans-care-ency” to describe the process. “We give transparency to the care being provided by the care team and the perception of that care of the patient. The caregiver team and the leadership team are all operating on the same set of metrics,” he said.

Making a Positive Difference

Aperum^® creates a range of benefits for the hospitals—and the patients—that use it: increased efficiency, lower costs, greater accountability and more. Among others, the following outcomes have been observed:

Increased efficiency—60% reduction in the amount of time spent managing rounds

More satisfied patients—Improvement in patient experience scores by 18 percent. The scores for nurse communication and patients’ willingness to recommend the facility ticked up too.

More Collaborative Environment—Leadership reported improved communication. Less time is wasted on phone calls and tracking down co-workers because all the information staffers needed is available on their tablets.

More responsive care—Armed with more information about each patient, nursing staff is able to customize the plan of care for patients who might have an altered mental status or other special challenges. Not only does this help prevent problems, it increases trust with patients’ family members.

Faster response times—Response to call light time decreased as a result of better understanding of patients’ needs.

Stronger, smarter teams—Because Aperum^® can track individual employees’ performance, it is easier for leaders to recognize excellent work and offer coaching when necessary.

Beyond the data and innovation, it’s important to remember the most important outcome that Sphere3 and Aperum^® help produce—an environment where nurses are able to spend less time on paperwork and devote more of their shift to their primary mission: serving patients.