From Paper to Pixel - The Digital Checklist Advantage

This blog is taken from a recent HealthStream webinar entitled “From Paper to Pixel: The Digital Checklist Advantage.” The webinar was moderated by Jill Lamle, HealthStream’s Campaign Marketing Manager for Clinical Staff Development and featured HealthStream’s Laura Rogers, BSN, MSN, Senior Solution Executive.

Leveraging technology to improve efficiency is an increasingly valuable strategy for healthcare leaders wishing to streamline processes – including many that have historically been managed with pen and paper. This new era of efficiency has produced better options for managing checklists.

Supporting Clinical Staff on the Journey to Expert

Regardless of where nurses are on their career paths from new student placement to nursing leadership, checklists and documentation will be part of that journey. The sheer number of competencies that require documentation for just a single nurse can actually be rather daunting and when multiplied by the entire clinical staff, the process can quickly become a potential liability for the organization. Rogers pointed out that the chaos created by systems based on binders and paper combined with litigation that can be initiated at any time within a seven-year period increases the risk associated with inefficient documentation processes. In addition, as a practical matter, keeping seven years’ worth of paper documentation is simply not feasible.

HealthStream Checklist – Reducing Risk and Creating Audit-Ready Documentation

HealthStream’s Checklist is a single tool that offers multiple solutions. It is a web-based application that can be used on desktops, mobile workstations, iPads and other mobile devices. It can help educators standardize onboarding and streamline their competency management documentation. Rogers shared that because of its flexibility and wide range of use cases, Checklist is one of HealthStream’s most adopted and highest performing solutions.

Rogers shared that many of her customers have initiatives that support the goal of becoming high-reliability organizations. “By moving to an electronic system like Checklist Management, you can create those standardized, repeatable processes that help you to reduce risk and liability while improving workflow,” said Rogers.

In addition, reporting features help users create reports for both internal reporting, as well as audit-ready reporting and individual employee transcripts.

Checklist – A Flexible Solution

There are three types of checklists supported by this solution:

• Self-Check: These are completed by the learner themselves and are perfect for orientation activities such as completing an orientation checklist, meeting managers, or participating in a tour of the unit or facility.
• Skills Validation: This is the most common use and is used by preceptors and educators for observing and validating skills.
• Competency: Checklist delivers a comprehensive and flexible means of documenting competency that includes multiple means of documentation and various scales for evaluation, as well as options for educators, preceptors, and evaluators.

Rogers demonstrated Checklist beginning with the landing page where students will find their To-Do list which includes both assigned and elective learning. In addition, students will see links for skills resource tools and skills checklists, so that they know precisely what will be expected of them. Also, a list of qualified evaluators is available to students for when they are ready for evaluation.

Evaluators can access resources that will help them learn evaluation guidelines and the tools necessary to mark the student proficient or not. The flexible nature of this solution allows evaluators to require additional training, recommend resources, and provide comments and feedback. Finally, evaluators can then mark the evaluation complete and it will automatically populate in the student’s transcript.

HealthStream Checklist – A Success Story

Emory Healthcare, an Atlanta-based 11-hospital system, had the goal of reducing the administrative time associated with skills validation and have transitioned to HealthStream’s Checklist management system. They worked with a HealthStream success manager and were able to enhance the efficiency of their workflow. “In just one year’s time, they had over 1,900 completions of 187 checklists which resulted in an estimated 50% reduction in administrative time,” said Rogers.