6th June 2011
As part of the 2011 PowerHealth Solutions User Conference, The Children's Hospital at Westmead hosted a site visit for delegates, to share their own experiences on using PowerPerformance Management (PPM) and PowerBilling & Revenue Collection (PBRC).
Costing (PPM)
The morning started off with a detailed briefing by Christine Fan on how she was using PPM costing to engage clinicians, who were interested in understanding the underlying costs of patient care so as to improve the processes and outcomes. The information was available through progressive quarterly costing builds, and was quite fine-grained for the purposes of understanding cost implications at the point of decision-making.
It was brilliant to hear that the hospital uses PPM to further their patient-centred objectives, and that the production of statutory costing reports is merely a by-product of their costing process and not the focus.
Billing (PBRC)
Lorraine Maguire presented on the hospital's recent implementation of PBRC (Phase 1), which was already yielding results in increased revenue and lowered bad debts & write-offs. Other good news included fewer errors, simplified tasks, transparent business processes, time savings, and better team communication.
Project Manager Jean Thomas, who fielded questions afterwards, described the system very succinctly as Bloody Beautiful!
Later, Jean Thomas showed billing delegates through the Billing & Finance areas, where staff were openly enthusiastic about the new system. Receipting Officer Ainsley Johnstone said with a big smile, It is awesome! I am very happy with it.
A key stakeholder in the project, Patient Administration System (PAS) Manager Cheryl Thomas was also very pleased with PBRC. As the PAS holds the patient master index records, it is a crucial system to link into the patient billing system.
Cheryl said, I like the fact that we can track the actual patient movement from single to shared rooms (which is something that we have never been able to do before PBRC), so that we can ensure that the appropriate billing occurs.
Hospital Tour
Finally, delegates were taken on a general tour of the hospital by Bill Doughty. The elegant, bright and airy hospital foyer felt more like an airport or a shopping centre, with impressive design that was centred on children's needs.
We were also shown facilities such as the hospital's school, their own live TV channel, their own live radio station (Radio Bedrock), a chill-out room where children could hang out and play games, watch TV, have their hair braided, etc.
Everywhere we looked, there was evidence of child-centred design, even to the point of conducting treatments away from the ward to minimise distress to the other ward patients, treatment rooms painted with interesting floor-to-ceiling murals, and doctors and nurses dressing and behaving oddly to distract children from any painful procedures.
I came away impressed that here was a hospital that had its eye firmly on the ball, head firmly screwed on, and heart totally in the right place. They know what they are doing, and they are using their Costing and Billing software very intelligently indeed.
