Baptist Health Hardin - Enhancing emergency department workflows and safety

In 2018, Hardin Memorial Health, now Baptist Health Hardin, doubled its emergency department (ED) square footage and increased the number of exam rooms from 27 to 65. Hospital leaders needed a solution to keep staff connected and safe in the much larger ED, while improving workflow efficiencies.

“The ED is a hospital within a hospital,” explained Steve White, Assistant Vice President of Operations at Baptist Health Hardin. “With our expansion, people became more dispersed and shoulder-to-shoulder communication went away. We also became one of the busiest EDs in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”

Leadership knew smartphones were not the answer because ED clinicians had already tried using a smartphone app from a Florida-based company, and adoption was low.

“A cumbersome smartphone is not conducive to a fast-paced environment like the ED,” said Deanna Parker, MBA, MHA, BSN, RN, Assistant Vice President of Emergency Services at Baptist Health Hardin. “Our clinicians cannot afford to text and wait or spend valuable time looking for one another.”