FAQs
How does PerfectServe work?
PerfectServe is a technology-enabled physician contact service that allows callers to reach any physician – or covering physician – at any moment in time, simply by dialing a single phone number. It assembles and maintains a database of every physician’s contact preferences for every moment of every day.
Whenever a caller attempts to contact a physician, PerfectServe responds to the doctor’s rules for that moment in time, assembles the correct call path, and routes the call appropriately. Thus, the need for callers to interpret physician instructions for each and every call is eliminated, and with it the potential for human error.
How will PerfectServe make it easier for our nurses to reach doctors?
Nurses and unit coordinators no longer have to track doctors’ phone numbers or on-call schedules. They dial the same single, unchanging phone number to reach every medical staff member. Nurses no longer have to interpret on-call schedules to see which doctor to call. Whenever a caller attempts to contact a doctor, PerfectServe states whether the doctor is on-call and, if not, who is covering.
Finally, nurses are able to reach doctors faster using PerfectServe. In fact, independent research found that nurses were up to ten times more likely to reach a physician in two minutes or less in a PerfectServe-equipped hospital. And the need for repeat phone calls may be reduced by up to 81 percent.
Will PerfectServe help us reduce our liability exposure?
It has already happened that PerfectServe has assisted a physician practice defending itself in a liability case. We were able to show that a phone contact claimed to have been made to a physician never took place.
Most often, by the time litigations arise, memories have faded and records of conversations are unclear – or even nonexistent. Because every hospital-to-physician contact is automatically documented by PerfectServe, we can reconstruct these interactions months – or even years – after a disputed event.
How is PerfectServe able to eliminate human error?
Conventional physician contact efforts are prone to error. Callers don’t always have the right phone number. And even when they do, they sometimes call the wrong doctor because they don’t have an up-to-date on-call schedule. And if they don’t succeed in reaching the doctor initially, they may be interrupted before they are able to try again. Or they may leave a message that never gets delivered. Or they may leave a message for the doctor to call back, but then be called away from the desk when that return call comes through.
Because PerfectServe assembles and maintains a database of every physician’s contact preference for every moment of every day, it eliminates the incorrect contacts and the white-knuckled doctor tracking. PerfectServe knows whether the doctor you wish to reach is oncall, and, if not, who is covering. And it knows precisely how that doctor wants to be reached at that moment in time.
How will PerfectServe notify our patient care teams?
Using PerfectServe TeamAlert, you can notify multiple members of your patient care teams in a single call. Since PerfectServe knows which team members are on duty and which are not at any moment in time, calls are routed appropriately. Which means those who are calling in the alerts can dispense with on-call schedules and individual calling instructions.
Also, PerfectServe can provide team members with pertinent information – where the team is needed, the nature of the alert, etc. – along with notifications. One PerfectServe client institution ran its own test and found that PerfectServe’s method of pushing alerts out to team members’ cell phones proved significantly faster than paging. For a period of time, team members carried both pagers and cell phones. It often happened that team members were already at the alert site before their pagers were activated.
Will PerfectServe help us notify our physicians and staff of critical values?
Yes. PerfectServe enables critical test results to be communicated in real-time or via voice message with failsafe notification. And PerfectServe automatically escalates routing of all critical calls — including lab results — to a covering physician when the primary physician is not on-call, as well as to other critical staff members specified by the hospital.
As you are no doubt aware, JCAHO National Patient Safety Goals 2C and 2D call for the timely report and receipt of critical test results, along with a mechanism to report critical values to an alternative physician when the primary physician is unavailable. With its failsafe and measurable process – including its automatic logging of critical values notifications – PerfectServe helps hospitals realize these central JCAHO goals.
What do you mean when you say PerfectServe is ‘failsafe’?
PerfectServe allows you to establish measurable communication processes. We can measure when and where calls originate from, to whom they are intended, and the contact method employed by the physician. For contacts completed in real time ( i.e, cell or home phone) we can determine that a connection was established and that a conversation took place.
When a voice message is created, we can determine when that message is retrieved by the physician. And when messages are not retrieved within established timeframes, escalation can occur automatically with forwarding to other devices, and – if necessary – a back-up physician.
Doesn’t PerfectServe just complicate an already complex process?
On the contrary. Because PerfectServe removes steps, decision points and communication handoffs, it takes complexity out of the physician contact process. PerfectServe unites all the various contact devices carried by physicians under a single, unchanging phone number. It eliminates the interminable phone lists, written instructions and on-call schedules that nurses are constantly consulting. PerfectServe standardizes your hospital-to-physician contact process – making it uniform and measurable.
What does PerfectServe offer our physicians?
Physicians enjoy:
Will PerfectServe help us improve patient safety?
JCAHO reports that the most frequently cited contributor to sentinel events in U.S. hospitals is communication breakdown. PerfectServe standardizes physician contact with a process that is more accurate and reliable, thus helping hospitals reduce communication breakdowns that increase patient care risks.
Independent research conducted by The University of Colorado found that with PerfectServe:
• Subsequent calls to physicians occurred up to 81 percent less frequently. • Up to 10 times more contacts were completed in two minutes or less. • ICU physician contact cycle times were reduced by up to 71 percent.
Researchers indicated that since the acuity level of the majority of calls they observed required an immediate response to assist in directing patient care, PerfectServe may help decrease the risk of adverse consequences due to delayed care – enhancing patient safety and reducing the liability potential for both the hospital and the physician.
What will PerfectServe allow us to measure?
When it comes to physician contact, the great majority of hospitals are completely in the dark. How many contact attempts are made in your facility each month? Which doctors do we call the most often? What contact methods are being employed? Are some methods safer and more effective than others?
In consultation with your administration, PerfectServe will develop a “dashboard” of statistics. This can include any of the above variables, or others you may wish to track. Without a measurable process, process improvement is all but impossible. PerfectServe will provide you with a measurable, standardized physician contact process, one that allows you to assess and monitor this critical area of care.
Can PerfectServe help us improve our door-to-balloon time?
The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association have established a 90-minute door-to-balloon time as the quality of care benchmark for acute myocardial infarction. Achieving this objective requires timely communication between ED and interventionalist physicians and fast mobilization of the catheterization team. Using PerfectServe TeamAlert, you can send failsafe notifications to an entire team in the time it takes to make a single phone call. Variables such as on-call schedules are taken into account.
In the event a team member does not respond immediately, PerfectServe automatically routes the notification to the appropriate back-up team member. The entire contact process is documented and reports are forwarded to appropriate hospital personnel on a scheduled basis. Thus, a snapshot of team contact performance is always available for review. |
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