How a Critical Healthcare Solution Go-Live Goes Virtual

McLaren Health Care is a $6 billion health system committed to quality, evidence-based patient care, and cost efficiency. The McLaren network includes 15 hospitals, 28,000 employees, and more than 90,000 network providers throughout Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio.

Challenges

A sentinel event related to communication failure was a key driver when McLaren Health Care chose to implement PerfectServe’s Clinical Collaboration solution alongside a new electronic medical record (EMR). Moving forward, these new, integrated clinical solutions would help protect patients and staff from dangerous lapses in communication.

Over the course of one year, four McLaren regions were deployed on PerfectServe. Because it was being rolled out simultaneously with the EMR, the timely execution of each planned deployment phase was crucial.

McLaren and PerfectServe Go-Live Plan

As the fifth and final PerfectServe deployment began, covering approximately 1,000 beds across five McLaren sites, leadership was excited and providers were engaged. The finish line was in sight. But then, something unexpected happened—COVID-19. 

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals everywhere closed their doors to all inessential services, information technology (IT) scrambled to support remote workers, and care teams sought new ways to keep patients and their family members engaged in their own care. With resources significantly constrained, there was fear that McLaren’s PerfectServe implementation would screech to a halt before completion of the final phase.

Solution

Prioritizing patient safety, McLaren leaders knew the ability of their hospitals and care teams to connect quickly and easily across different devices and locations via video, voice, and text was more important than ever. Rather than abandoning or delaying their efforts to solve communication challenges and protect patient safety , McLaren agreed to work with PerfectServe to pivot their go-live plan to a remote approach.

Implementation

McLaren and PerfectServe teamed up to drive engagement and training with renewed commitment through phase five, creating and documenting new processes as needed, such as:

• A video chat bridge was open from 7 AM-10 PM each day to give on-site hospital personnel quick access to the PerfectServe team, and calls were held daily for key stakeholders.
• PerfectServe representatives provided video training sessions, and McLaren coordinated internal resources to ensure all providers and care team members were trained and prepared.
• Workflow modifications and strategies were created via open, collaborative channels.
• A PerfectServe clinical consultant was on call 24/7 for McLaren’s needs.

Results

McLaren Health Care’s remote go-live with PerfectServe saw success with strong adoption and utilization metrics, newfound organizational peace of mind, and process improvements for patient safety.

On day one of launch:

• 88% of all providers were registered and ready to go.
• 95% of staff had their schedules loaded, which is important for proper communication routing.
• 225+ conversations occurred through PerfectServe.