The Situation: Manual and Labor-Intensive documentation of product usage
A health system and academic medical center in New York has a simple objective: provide the best patient care while ensuring operational efficiency in the operating room. Accomplishing this goal requires accurate documentation of disposable devices and supplies to understand usage. Unfortunately, supply documentation is labor-intensive, prone to human error, and takes valuable attention away from patient care. They needed a more streamlined and accurate alternative.
Enter AssistIQ: The Solution and Its Impact
The health system decided to evaluate AssistIQ’s AI capture software in three procedures in cardiac and general surgery. The resulting observations showed that AssistIQ’s technology could identify 98% of products used including custom packs, even those without barcodes or RFID.
It demonstrated a substantial improvement over manual entry, barcode scanning, or RFID techniques that do not scale beyond high-value items. AssistIQ’s AI capture does not require updated GTIN codes, eliminating this maintenance by the supply chain team.
One of the circulating nurses shared, “The software’s user-friendly design made it very straightforward to use. We are hoping for an integration with our EHR to eliminate manual entry and save time, allowing us to focus on our patients, without having to compromise on case documentation.”
AssistIQ Delivers 17-24% Decrease in Disposable Product Costs per Case
However, the benefits of AssistIQ surpassed just simplifying the documentation. When cost per case savings of 17-24% are aggregated together, over $400,000 in annual savings was revealed across the three procedures in the evaluation. Conservative estimates suggest an annual savings potential starting at $3 million annually across the hospital which has 16 operating rooms.
The most substantial savings came from optimizing purchasing quantities to match the usage of custom packs. By reducing recurring orders to real-time data, the hospital reduces costs, waste and its carbon footprint – showcasing a significant financial and environmental opportunity as the platform is expanded to additional specialities and procedures.
Moving Forward with Confidence: Leveraging AssistIQ’s Insights for Continued Optimization
AssistIQ delivered postoperative scorecards to the surgeons which included cost information and how the costs compared to their peers. An example of the impact of cost awareness is that one of the surgeons noted that his costs were higher compared to his colleagues and drilled down to identify a unique product that he was using which costs approximately 3 times that of the product used by his peers. This led to his own decision to change products if the cost continued to be significantly higher.
AssistIQ’s ability to generate accurate usage data highlighted 3 key benefits:
- Cost awareness to surgeons led to more cost effective decisions, as in the above example.
- Preference card updates can be streamlined using AssistIQ’s machine learning AI recommendations that compare actual usage with the products listed in the preference card.
- PAR level and ordering recommendations have the potential to reduce overstock areas and yield considerable savings.
Expansion and Integration
Given the potential to improve data accuracy and save costs and carbon, the health system is now evaluating the opportunity for expansion. Integration between AssistIQ and the hospitals EHR and ERP systems are needed to scale the solution and replace the existing manual documentation of the nurses.
Extrapolating the data from the evaluation indicates the potential to improve data quality, streamline manual processes for nurses and service line leaders, and achieve savings of millions of dollars annually.
Eager to unlock significant savings? Join a growing number of Health Systems leveraging the power of AssistIQ to make healthcare more affordable and sustainable. Visit AssistIQ.ai to learn more and get in touch to schedule a conversation.
