Strata Health: Bringing innovation to emergency healthcare optimization

Early outcomes from public hospitals in the UK show that through the use of Strata Health’s Emergency Department Streaming Kiosks, 30% of patients can be diverted and treated in alternative settings of care. Patients expect that Emergency Departments will offer immediate access to healthcare for a wide array of healthcare interventions. Strata Health is making advances in improving emergency care with seamless, easy-to-use kiosks that allow emergency teams to effectively and safely divert ambulatory patients to alternative, lower acuity options. Tailored to the local frontline services, this innovative technology enables patients to self-navigate to a more appropriate care setting. This not only reduces Emergency Department wait times, but also allows Emergency Teams to focus their skills and resources on the higher acuity patients. Easy to implement, our integrated technology is already up and running in multiple locations, allowing us to share meaningful data and deliver tangible results with interested organizations.

STRATA HEALTH EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT DIVERSION GOALS
• Reduce attendance in Emergency Departments
• Reduce load and delay at patient intake and triage in Emergency Department
• Ensure emergency resources are used effectively
• Empower patients to self-navigate
• Divert patients who don’t require an emergency team to the correct department
• Allow emergency teams to attend to patients who need emergency care
• Relieve winter pressures typical during influenza season
• Reduce admissions in the Emergency Department

WHY IS EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT DIVERSION SO IMPORTANT?
Emergency Departments are overburdened, which puts undue pressure on staff to assess and triage patients quickly. When staff are overwhelmed with admissions and assessments that can be dealt with by other departments, their ability to spend time with the higher acuity patients who need them most is hindered. Plus, with less time to assess each patient they err on the side of caution, tending to admit more patients to the emergency department than necessary, which contributes to overcrowding. There is now clear evidence that patients who spend longer in Emergency Departments have poorer outcomes and a greater length of stay (NHS England 2007 to present).

IMPACT OF EFFECTIVE EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT DIVERSION
Imagine emergency teams swiftly and effectively moving patients through the care they need, unhindered by assessing non-emergent patients, who are redirected to appropriate departments to get them the care they need, faster. Reducing overall footfall in the Emergency Department by even just 10% can have a significant impact on wait times (NHS England HES). There is an early indication that 30% of kiosk users are being diverted to other locations, with positive impact seen for both patients and staff.

IMPACT ON PATIENT CARE

  • Reduced wait times for triage
  • Empowered to self-navigate as appropriate
  • Reduced duplicate intake assessments Improved experience in Emergency Department
  • Reduced unnecessary admissions Improved patient outcomes and reduced length of stay if admitted

BENEFITS TO EMERGENCY TEAMS

  • Reduced unnecessary triage
  • Focused triage efforts on emergent cases
  • Reduced time spent navigating patients to other ambulatory services
  • Facilitated adherence to mandated wait times by removing non-emergent cases from the count

NEXT STEPS: THE FUTURE OF EMERGENCY CARE
Strata Health’s innovation projects are bringing real change in the flow of patients into this most important urgent care resource. We are collaborating with our partners to develop patient engagement applications with self-assessment, navigation and referral capabilities, which will allow patients to guide themselves to the most appropriate community and acute services. In addition, we have integrated to virtual care platforms to enable virtual consultations, allowing patients to receive care wherever they are.

The future of urgent and emergency healthcare will rely on solutions that will elevate every healthcare organization ready to embrace them and empower the public to easily determine what’s appropriate and available. Our innovative approach to emergency room diversions will help you smoothly automate this transformation.

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