SHM Converge Scientific Abstract ePoster Gallery-No More Game of Telephone: Improving the Inpatient Admission Process

Pdf Summary

Northwell Health describes an initiative to improve the inpatient admission process from the Emergency Department to hospital medicine at a 750-bed academic medical center. Historically, admissions were coordinated through pagers and phone calls, which required manual transcription, created delays, and made closed-loop communication difficult as admission volume grew.<br /><br />To address this, an interdisciplinary team of hospital medicine, emergency medicine, and IT leaders redesigned the workflow in early 2023 using Nora, a PHI-secure Microsoft chatbot integrated with Microsoft Teams. The new process auto-populates a patient card with EMR data and demographics, while the ED provider adds contact information, the primary doctor’s name, and a brief clinical summary. Admission requests are sent securely with a single click, eliminating pager-based communication.<br /><br />Hospitalists acknowledge receipt with one click, can expand the card for additional details, and review the chart in the EMR before contacting the ED provider. A brief warm handoff then occurs via Teams call. After acceptance, the ED provider receives an alert, and the request/receipt log is preserved in an actively monitored chat, supporting closed-loop communication and ongoing quality review.<br /><br />The redesign has been well received by users on both sides, who report more efficient communication, faster turnaround times, less pager disruption, fewer transcription errors, and better organization. The team plans to expand the system to a sister hospital and potentially adapt it for subspecialty consult workflows.

Asset Subtitle

Charles Kast

Meta Tag

Author List Alfred Caligiuri, Charles Kast, Esther Ahn, Kristopher Stillwell, Lara Reda, Lily L. Yung, Linda Kurian, Payal Sud

Category Innovations

Concept Emergency Department Admission Handoff

Concept Admission Workflow

Concept Admission Request

Concept Pager-Based Communication

Concept Closed-Loop Communication

Distinguished Non-Finalist

Presenter Organization North Shore University Hospital

Presenting Author Charles Kast

Track Technology in Hospital Medicine

Keywords

Northwell Health

Emergency Department admissions

hospital medicine

Microsoft Teams chatbot

Nora chatbot

closed-loop communication

inpatient admission workflow

pager replacement

electronic medical record integration

warm handoff

Emergency Department Admission Handoff

Admission Workflow

Admission Request

Pager-Based Communication

Closed-Loop Communication