As an Administrator at a Skilled Nursing Facility in Eastern Iowa, we recently had a patient successfully move on from our facility to another facility. This patient arrived at their new facility only to pose a question that the new facility had never heard before.
“Where’s My Schedule?”
The patient previously had 24-hour electronic access to their daily schedule, as did their family, therapists, and healthcare providers. The patient knew when they had a bath or haircut scheduled, as well as activities. The therapists were always able to schedule therapy when no one else was seeing the patient, and vice versa. The family knew the best visiting hours, as well as having confidence in knowing who was providing what services at what time weekly. So, when the patient arrived at their new facility, their predictable question to staff was, “Where’s my schedule?”.
To this foreign question, the staff at the next facility acknowledged that they didn’t have a viewable schedule for the patient or the family, but to their credit, they wrote one down daily. As communication practices improve a facility’s internal processes, so too do we see improvements in collaboration, problem solving, and overall efficiency. These can all impact patient experience by decreasing the unknown for the patient and the anxiety that comes with that. When patients know what to expect in their day, they know when to engage, when to rest, and they get better faster!
Skilled Day
As our industry continues to identify Communication as a New Standard of Care (link), how will your facility accommodate this opportunity? This is an opportunity to differentiate your facility.
**“This is state of the art. This sets you apart from other facilities.” - Director of Post-Acute Services**
The app that is in use at my facility is one that I developed specifically for Skilled Nursing Facilities. Skilled Day is a web app that I initially developed to allow simple staff scheduling and family communication. Skilled Day helps my facility differentiate from others by engaging all the team (including patient and family) around the work it takes on a daily basis to get to that ultimate goal of going home.
Multiple other facets of our services improved with Skilled Day as a result, including Weekly Bedside Care Conferences. To find out more, watch the video below, and then schedule a demo with Skilled Day!
Jaclyn Hall is a Co-Founder of Skilled Day and the Administrator at UnityPoint Health, St. Luke’s Hospital Transitional Care Center, in Cedar Rapids Iowa, where she has worked the past 15 years. She has a Doctor of Physical Therapy from the University of Iowa, where she also received her Master of Business Administration. Jaclyn is a Certified Professional of Healthcare Quality through the National Association for Healthcare Quality.