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Automating Paper Processes at Maine Medical Center:
Custom Web Forms and Real-Time Dashboards using SAS BI
The Largest Medical Center in Northern New England needs to improve survey and data collection activities to be more proactive.
The Challenge:
Maine Medical Center is a 636 bed teaching hospital located in Portland, Maine and is a leader in
improving quality and patient safety. The Department of Pharmacy at Maine Medical Center is an active player in continuous improvement efforts and this is in evidence with the Medication Storage Inspection Survey. Previously, Pharmacy technicians would be sent out with paper forms and notebooks to over 115 different units/locations to perform monthly surveys of proper medication storage. The 115 surveys as well as associated notes were compiled and saved for year-end reporting. At the end of the year more than 4,000 pages were analyzed, compiled and entered into an Excel spreadsheet. This did not lend itself well to continuous improvement efforts as information was slow to circulate to the appropriate leaders. BrightHeight Solutions’ expertise with the SAS Business Intelligence platform was utilized to address this challenge.
The Bright Idea:
BrightHeight worked with the Department of Pharmacy to develop a custom web form within SAS BI
Portal for Pharmacy Techs to enter inspection data and notes online. In addition, SAS BI Dashboard functionality was used as well as several SAS Stored Processes to implement real-time dashboards to show the progress instantly for each of the units.
The manual entry of over 4000 pages into an Excel spreadsheet was replaced with a continually updated PDF showing the YTD results of all survey inspections completed. The generated PDF also dynamically generated the most problematic inspection questions for Maine Medical Center and empowered staff to work with the various units to improve.
Benefits Realized:
The advantages to using SAS Business Intelligence for automating
paper-based surveys
- Problems are identified immediately and not at year-end
- Increased productivity for technicians and inspectors
- Reporting and Data Entry in one place within the SAS Portal
- Feedback provided to each inspected unit with automatic inspection document
- Identifies problem areas hospital-wide and highlights improvement
- Constant feedback provided