Upstate University Hospital in New York has adopted the Vocera Rounds solution to improve communication between physicians and patients, improving care and satisfaction.
Vocera Communications, Inc., a provider of clinical communication and workflow solutions, today announced that physicians at Upstate University Hospital in New York have implemented Vocera’s digital rounding solution to improve communication. SUNY Upstate Medical University located in Syracuse, NY, is the only academic medical center in Central New York serving 1.8 million people.
Benefits of Vocera Rounds Solution
Focused on improving physician communication and patient experience, Dr. Dhamoon and team implemented the Vocera Rounds solution to collect data about hospitalists’ behaviors during patient interactions and provide real-time feedback. The digital assessment is customized using Vocera Rounds, a mobile application that enables clinicians to customize patient-centric questions, easily capture answers and observations, and track trends per clinician and department.
Implementation Approach
Clinicians and quality leaders at Upstate University Hospital worked closely with the care experience team at Vocera to design questions that address core communication tenets for physicians to follow. During a hospitalist-patient interaction, a medical resident observes the physician’s behaviors and captures observations in the app using an iPad. Residents and physicians also use the app to conduct a brief patient survey after the encounter.
“The power of this professional teaching program is the combination of immediate feedback from patients and colleagues,” said Dr. Dhamoon, who is studying the effectiveness of this training approach and its impact on patient satisfaction measured by Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys.
To date, more than 1,700 facilities worldwide, including nearly 1,500 hospitals and healthcare facilities, utilized Vocera for team members to text securely using smartphones or make calls with their hands-free, wearable Vocera Badge.