News Releases
With PerfectServe, St. Rita’s Medical Center Cuts Trauma Surgeon Contact Cycle-Time in Half
January 9, 2006
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Trauma Alert initiative is designed to provide fast access to the trauma surgeon on-call whenever a seriously injured patient comes to St. Rita’s Emergency Department in Lima, Ohio.
And in the days before PerfectServe, the St. Rita’s Medical Center’s Emergency Department was forced to make calls to the trauma surgeon manually, sending alpha pages and hoping for timely call-backs.
The process was imperfect, Vickie Graymire, RN, Trauma Program Manager, recalls, with manual calls going to multiple devices and locations per trauma surgeon.
With PerfectServe, only one call is required
But now, thanks to PerfectServe, just a single phone call – to the same phone number every time – results in an immediate, real-time connection between the E.R. physician and the correct trauma surgeon on-call.
“PerfectServe has let our Trauma Surgeon move from an alpha paging process, which involved multiple phone calls to achieve contact, to a real-time, one-to-one process, which puts us in immediate touch with the surgeon wherever that surgeon might be – at the office, at home, at another hospital, or in the car,” Graymire said.
“PerfectServe has gotten rid of the problem of multiple calls – to a physician’s office, pager, second pager, home, along with the inevitable call-backs,” she said. “We dial just one number, and PerfectServe routes the call automatically to the appropriate surgeon.”
Contact cycle times are cut by half or more
Graymire estimates that the time required for the Emergency Department to reach a trauma surgeon has been reduced by at least half.
“Minutes mean a lot in the trauma world,” Graymire said. “Utilizing PerfectServe to reach our surgeons in real-time has made a big difference in the responsiveness and effectiveness of our team.”
“PerfectServe has also improved the quality of communication,” Graymire said. Often, Emergency Department physicians and trauma surgeons are able to discuss a case while the trauma surgeon is still in transit to the hospital. The trauma surgeon knows what he or she will be facing prior to arrival. There’s less time spent getting up to speed.
“Seconds saved and minutes saved can often mean lives saved, and that’s what PerfectServe offers our Trauma Program,” Graymire said.
About PerfectServe, Inc.
The PerfectServe physician-contact network automatically routes calls and messages to the right doctor, at the right time, in the precise way each physician wishes to be reached. Communication occurs faster, with greater efficiency and safety, because PerfectServe assembles and maintains the entire communications workflow and contact preferences for every medical staff physician, for every moment of every day. The company currently serves nearly 12,000 physicians in 150 markets across the U.S. For more information, visit www.perfectserve.com.