Adventist Medical Center in Portland, Ore., is known for its new, state-of-the-art Northwest Regional Heart and Vascular facility. Serving residents of the greater Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area, Adventist is one of only three accredited chest pain centers in the state. Consumer Reports calls it “one of the safest hospitals in the nation for clinical outcomes.” Staff and clinicians in the cardiovascular service line work continuously to improve the already excellent standard of care delivered at Adventist. They recently introduced new analytics tools that allow them to track performance and improve outcomes.
Reducing Door-to-ECG Time
Previously, the Heart and Vascular center had an average door-to-ECG time of 15-16 minutes. They wanted to reduce that time. Using Lumedx analytics reports to track key metrics, the hospital identified where it might improve, then implemented process changes and cut its door-to-ECG time to an average of eight minutes. “What’s important is that the technology we use doesn’t merely help us to find out where we need to do better — it also allows us to see where we’re doing well so we can replicate that success across the cardiovascular service line,” said Cardiovascular Quality Registrar Melody Sanders-Cook.
Faster Turnaround for Physician Requests
Custom report generation used to mean spending hours going through different silos of information and hand-tabulating data in Excel. But with the introduction of new software, staff can now quickly fulfill physician requests for information, running near real-time reports on anything. For example, if a doctor wants to know how many patients from a particular zip code come into the hospital for a certain procedure, Melody can select the appropriate fields and run a report with the click of a mouse.
“Now it’s possible for us to drill down into any metric in order to see more clearly and better understand our performance,” said Sanders-Cook. And efficiency has improved too. “I easily save two to three hours per custom report with our analytics software.”
Award-Winning Registry Outcomes
Registries are a key component of the Adventist cardiovascular quality program, so collecting and submitting registry data in a timely manner is of primary importance. The hospital submits to the following national cardiac registries: STS National Database, ACC NCDR ACTION Registry-GWTG, and ACC NCDR ICD Registry. Their Lumedx registry software saves time by streamlining the data collection and submission process, and by automatically cross-populating common data fields between registries.
“We’ve been very successful in our registry submissions, and have been recognized by the ACC NCDR for our commitment to excellence,” Sanders-Cook said. “Using the software makes it much easier to participate in all the registries that are important to our program.”
The hospital has received the following awards:
• Platinum Performance Achievement Award from the American College of Cardiology’s National Cardiovascular Data Registry ACTION Registry-Get With The Guidelines for 2015
• Silver Performance Achievement Award from the American College of Cardiology NCDR ACTION Registry-GWTG for 2010
• Get With the Guidelines Gold Quality Achievement Award for Stroke Care from the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association for 2010
For more information: www.lumedx.com
May 15, 2024 
