Tag: COVID-19

Transforming hospital safety: How the pandemic is serving as a catalyst for change

Posted on by Leo Bogee

Held at the two-year anniversary of the World Health Organization’s declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, this webinar panel of hospital leaders discussed the challenges they’ve faced in the last two years — as well as the steps they are taking to improve the future of hospital safety for patients, staff and visitors.

The panel of infection preventionists, pharmacists and hospital executives also shared insights from the fourth annual Hospital Patient Safety Report. Based on a January 2022 survey of 100 hospital leaders, the report reveals hospitals’ biggest safety challenges and priorities.

Key webinar learning points:

  • Safety challenges exposed by the pandemic
  • Safety improvements made at the outset of the pandemic that had a long-term impact
  • Leading hospitals’ planned safety improvements and priorities for 2022
  • How hospitals are preparing for future pandemic-like situations

 

Vigilanz Offers COVID-19 Vaccine Management Solution Free to Customers | Healthcare IT Today

Posted on by Leo Bogee

VigiLanz, a clinical surveillance company, announced the launch of a new mass vaccination support software. The company is offering Vigilanz Vaccinate free to its existing customers to help frontline healthcare teams stay safe.

I had the chance to sit down with Stacy Pur, Vice President of Product Development at Vigilanz to find out more about their product and to talk through some of the unique challenges of these early vaccines.

Why Free?

“The COVID-19 issue is personal—at VigiLanz, we have had employees and family members contract COVID-19 and require medical intervention,” said David Goldsteen, VigiLanz’s CEO. “We are so grateful for the amazing care healthcare teams are delivering across the country, and we wanted to do something to help. It was important to us to offer this tool [Vigilanz Vaccinate] to current customers for free to help them and their frontline healthcare teams stay safe during this extremely challenging global pandemic. It’s the right thing to do.”

You can read more of this article on Healthcare IT Today.

VigiLanz Launches New Software for Hospitals to Rapidly Deploy and Manage COVID-19 Mass Vaccination Events for Healthcare Workers

Posted on by Leo Bogee

VigiLanz Vaccinate helps hospitals manage their COVID-19 risk, reduce vaccine waste, and automate data collection for CDC and state reporting

MINNEAPOLIS – Dec. 16, 2020 – VigiLanz, a clinical surveillance company, today announced the launch of a new mass vaccination support software, built on its leading enterprise software platform. VigiLanz Vaccinate provides end-to-end management of the entire vaccination process, enabling hospitals to maximize the success of mass vaccination events for healthcare workers. Especially critical now, as hospitals seek to protect staff members and patients from COVID-19 transmission, VigiLanz Vaccinate can also be used to manage annual influenza vaccination and other events. Current customers are being given priority access to the software, at no cost.

“It’s critical for hospitals to rapidly roll out the COVID-19 vaccine to staff—not only to keep frontline healthcare workers safe, but also to protect their families and the patients they work with until the vaccine is available to everyone,” said Stacy Pur, VigiLanz’s VP of Product Development. “The COVID-19 vaccine presents some unique challenges for mass vaccination events, as it expires quickly once thawed and requires two doses spaced at specific intervals. VigiLanz Vaccinate was designed to help manage this process, ensuring the maximum number of staff receive the vaccine as efficiently as possible.”

VigiLanz Vaccinate streamlines vaccine administration and management by making it easy for staff to register and provide consent, while automating workflows for program administrators. Its real-time insights into volume needs reduce vaccine waste, while analytics give visibility into vaccination and immunity rates at the individual, department, hospital, and system-level. The software issues automated reminders to healthcare staff to register and attend appointments for both vaccine doses, and report any side effects. In addition, it collates data for critical reporting back to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), and the state, for immunity rates and any adverse side effects.

“The COVID-19 issue is personal—at VigiLanz, we have had employees and family members contract COVID-19 and require medical intervention,” said David Goldsteen, VigiLanz’s CEO. “We are so grateful for the amazing care healthcare teams are delivering across the country, and we wanted to do something to help. We’re proud of this demonstration of innovation and agility from our product team. When the pandemic hit, we created COVID Quick Start, a software module to help hospitals quickly implement a COVID-19 infection prevention solution. Now, with VigiLanz Vaccinate, we’ve rapidly developed and deployed an offering that our team saw a critical need for—helping frontline healthcare workers get vaccinated against COVID-19 as quickly and efficiently as possible. It was important to us to offer this tool to current customers for free to help them and their frontline healthcare teams stay safe during this extremely challenging global pandemic. It’s the right thing to do.”

VigiLanz is prioritizing current customer implementations to ensure their needs are met, with plans to accept future-customer inquiries as early as January 2021. Please direct requests to vaccinate@vigilanzcorp.com, and learn more at Vigilanzcorp.com/vaccinate.

 

###

About VigiLanz

Founded in 2001, VigiLanz (www.vigilanzcorp.com) is a privately held, rapidly growing provider of SaaS-based clinical surveillance solutions. The firm is focused on aggregating disparate EHR transactional workflow and documentation data across health systems to identify real-time clinical issues that avoid or minimize harm, optimize clinical outcomes and support preventive care. VigiLanz supports a large and growing community of hospital CMOs, CMIOs, CIOs, quality and safety teams, infectious disease and control specialists, pharmacists, and other clinicians dedicated to real-time inpatient and outpatient care.

 

Media Contact
Vanessa Ulrich
(410) 534.1161
vulrich@sage-growth.com

 

Second wave preparedness: Infection preventionists and pharmacy leaders discuss safety & COVID-19

Posted on by Leo Bogee

The first wave of COVID-19, and the significant challenges it raised for hospitals, underscored the highly critical role that pharmacists, infection preventionists, and antimicrobial stewardship teams play in keeping patients, staff, and visitors safe.

During this panel discussion, infection prevention and pharmacy leaders from hospitals across the country shared some of the biggest challenges they encountered during the first wave of COVID-19, how they used clinical surveillance to enhance patient care, and the lessons they learned. They also shared how their organizations are preparing for a second wave of COVID-19, and the initiatives they are implementing now to ensure safer care.

During this live panel discussion, pharmacists and infection preventionists describe: 

  • The challenges they faced during the first wave of COVID-19 and how they addressed them
  • The role that clinical surveillance played in enhancing patient care
  • How they are preparing for a potential second wave of COVID-19
  • Their top recommendations for other pharmacists and infection preventionists

VigiLanz Launches COVID Quick Start, a Respiratory Viral Illness Prevention Software, Partnering with Datica for Rapid Deployment

Posted on by Leo Bogee

Hospitals can prepare for additional waves of COVID-19 and flu season in a matter of weeks, with no payments for six months

MINNEAPOLIS – May 20, 2020 – VigiLanz, a clinical surveillance company, today announced COVID Quick Start – a new solution that will enable hospitals to prepare for, prevent, and respond to the spread of COVID-19 and other respiratory viral illnesses. COVID Quick Start gives hospitals customizable real-time alerts and reports to manage viral outbreaks and exposures. Partnering with Datica for rapid deployment and supported by a team of VigiLanz’s certified infection preventionists, the software is designed to alleviate the burden on hospital IT resources and clinical staff while increasing patient safety. The solution is available for free for the first six months, with flexible financing options thereafter.

Learn more

COVID Quick Start uses VigiLanz’s clinical surveillance platform to help hospitals adapt to the evolving conditions associated with respiratory viral illnesses. The platform continuously pulls patient data from a variety of sources, including EHRs, and evaluates that data against rules that issue real-time alerts to clinical staff. The rules are designed to identify potential respiratory viral illnesses, ensuring early isolation and management of patients, and can also track disease clusters to identify local outbreaks and hospital acquisition.

“Our team recognized that VigiLanz’s software and expertise could be tailored to address the unique issues presented by this pandemic and other potential respiratory viral illnesses, and that we could design a solution with a low barrier to entry,” said Stacy Pur, Vice President of Product Development at VigiLanz. “We’ve built COVID Quick Start as a solution that works both for hospitals with well-funded infection prevention programs, and those where resources may be more restricted. These organizations are facing a possible second wave of COVID-19 on top of the upcoming influenza season. Our Quick Start solution, which provides the basics of what hospitals need to monitor – such as exposures, early case identification, COVID-19 state and federal reporting requirements, and isolation – will help hospitals quickly prepare for what is coming.”

Recognizing the urgency for hospitals to have a solution like this in place, COVID Quick Start uses VigiLanz Connect, an API solution for hospital EHRs, powered by Datica, to deliver an even faster integration. This solution minimizes the burden on hospital IT resources and enables COVID Quick Start to begin improving patient safety as quickly as possible.

“Datica has deep expertise, with over 400 successful EHR integrations,” said Dave Levin, MD, Chief Medical Officer at Datica. “We’re proud to collaborate with VigiLanz as their EHR integration partner to quickly launch their COVID Quick Start product.”

COVID Quick Start provides an easy and low-risk entry to the full suite of VigiLanz’s SaaS-based clinical surveillance solutions. VigiLanz helps health systems avoid or minimize harm, optimize clinical outcomes, and support preventive care by aggregating and monitoring disparate data in real time from across the EHR and other health system databases. VigiLanz was ranked No. 1 by KLAS Research this year across three categories – Antimicrobial Stewardship, Infection Control and Monitoring, and Pharmacy Surveillance. This is the third year in a row it has earned Category Leader designations from KLAS.

Learn more about COVID Quick Start at vigilanzcorp.com/covid-19/.

 

###

 

About VigiLanz

Founded in 2001, VigiLanz (www.vigilanzcorp.com) is a privately held, rapidly growing provider of SaaS-based clinical surveillance solutions. The firm is focused on aggregating disparate EHR transactional workflow and documentation data across health systems to identify real-time clinical issues that avoid or minimize harm, optimize clinical outcomes and support preventive care. VigiLanz supports a large and growing community of hospital CMOs, CMIOs, CIOs, quality and safety teams, infectious disease and control specialists, pharmacists, and other clinicians dedicated to real-time inpatient and outpatient care.

About Datica

Datica is the only managed service provider (MSP) that solves healthcare’s biggest roadblocks–EHR integration and cloud compliance. Its integration solution enables data integration from any source, to any destination, in any format – without sacrificing PHI security. Datica’s cloud compliance solution offers end-to-end managed services for digital innovators to scale rapidly in the cloud, while ensuring HIPAA compliance and HITRUST certification are in place.

With over 400 live integrations and compliant cloud infrastructure for Fortune 500 companies, Datica’s deep expertise gives you the confidence and infrastructure to scale quickly and securely. For more info, visit:https://datica.com.

 

How COVID-19 Is Changing Patients’ Hospital Safety Perceptions

Posted on by Leo Bogee

Nearly 40% of consumers say COVID-19 has negatively changed their perception of hospital safety, and more than one-third (34%) say they would not feel confident going to a hospital for care if they or a family member had COVID-19.

That’s according to an April 2020 survey of 744 consumers by Sage Growth Partners and Black Book Market Research.

“COVID-19 will have an enduring impact not only on how care is delivered in the United States, but on how patients approach healthcare,” said David Goldsteen, MD, a former emergency physician and VigiLanz’s CEO.

A recent survey of 100 hospital leaders reveals that hospitals are making some patient safety improvements, but there’s still a long way to go.
Read the report

“While respect for healthcare providers is at an all-time high, many consumers fear that hospitals don’t have the resources necessary to provide high-quality care amidst the pandemic. Over the next few months, hospitals will need to move quickly to prepare for another potential surge and to rebuild consumer trust.”

How COVID-19 Will Change Hospital Safety Efforts

Posted on by Leo Bogee

Two physician leaders share how their healthcare systems are ramping up efforts to enhance staff and patient safety.

VigiLanz’s 2020 Hospital Patient Safety Survey, which took place just prior to the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., found that hospital leaders are highly confident about their infection prevention programs. Seventy six percent of the 100 survey respondents characterized their hospital’s infection prevention efforts as extremely or very effective.

Still, COVID-19 is raising unprecedented challenges for hospitals. Despite heroic efforts, many are struggling to contain the virus’ spread and protect their staff members—largely due to personal protective equipment (PPE) shortages. As of April 9, more than 9,000 healthcare workers had tested positive for the virus, according to the CDC.

In response, hospitals are ramping up efforts to enhance staff and patient safety. As the senior vice president and chief physician executive at a large healthcare system in the mid-Atlantic region told us, employee safety continues to be a high level priority amidst COVID-19.

“We’re focused on reducing risk to our heroes serving on the front-line.”

“We are tracking this very closely,” he said. “Also, we are focusing on how to maintain safety in areas where there are decreased cases, such as the OR. We will also watch safety closely as new care models are implemented with different staffing models due to the surge.”

Quelling transmission of COVID-19 to healthcare providers is also a top priority at a large health system in the south-central region of the country. “We’re focused on reducing risk to our heroes serving on the front-line,” said the chief medical officer there. “We’re increasing our rotation of personnel to assist in decreasing fatigue and exposure, limiting visitors to our facility, and accelerating training of all personnel in proper donning and doffing of PPE.”

2020 Hospital Patient Safety Report, VigiLanz, May 2020

He added that COVID-19 will have a significant long-term impact on patient safety initiatives. “We’ll focus on more training on PPE, utilizing new disinfecting products and unique items to decrease staff exposures during intubations and particle aerosolizing, and on preparing for new or rebound viral pandemics/epidemics,” he said. “More resources will be allocated to personnel and training in infection prevention procedures.”

 

Find out how COVID-19 is changing patients’ hospital safety perceptions 

Read the Report

Sharp HealthCare Turns to Clinical Surveillance for Preventing Drug, Supply Shortages

Posted on by Leo Bogee

The organization is staying ahead of the game by proactively monitoring its supplies needed for COVID-19 

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to present new challenges for health system leaders, many of whom are facing critical shortages of personal protective equipment (PPE), medications, and other important supplies.

At Sharp HealthCare, the integrated delivery system based in San Diego, clinical IT professionals are using VigiLanz, a clinical surveillance software, to maximize the use of the supplies they do have, with alerts that are helping healthcare workers on the front lines.

You can read more of this article on Healthcare Innovation.  

For more on VigiLanz’s COVID-19 rules and solutions, click here.

 

A Message from David Goldsteen, MD, VigiLanz CEO

Posted on by Leo Bogee


To our hospital partners and healthcare providers,

Thank you for the long hours you are working, the risks you are taking, and the sacrifices you are making to care for patients with COVID-19. VigiLanz is here to support you in any way that we can.

Over the past few weeks, you’ve shared some of your top challenges with us. We’ve also gathered insights from our internal clinical team. Based on these discussions, we’re enabling new COVID-19 related rules, reports, and alerts almost daily and supporting custom requests based on the unique needs of each hospital.

We’ve also created a new COVID-19 Testing Results report. This report compiles all patients with a COVID-19 order, positive/negative lab result, or positive microbiology report. In addition, it includes patient demographics, clinical parameters like temperature, SpO2, FiO2, medications, and discharge disposition. As with all of our reports, it can be exported to Excel after it’s generated.

As the COVID-19 crisis evolves and your needs change, we will continue to reach out and identify new ways to help. We’ll share that information here, on our website, and in emails.

In the meantime, please let us know if there are any other ways we can support you.

With gratitude for the important work you’re doing.

David

David Goldsteen, MD, MBA
Chairman & CEO, VigiLanz

COVID-19 Rules and Solutions

Posted on by Leo Bogee

Updated April 7, 2020

Hospitals across the country are reaching out to us with requests for clinical surveillance support related to COVID-19. We’re responding by creating new rules, alerts, and reports on an almost daily basis.

To ensure you are aware of these resources available to you, we’ve assembled the two below lists:

  • List 1 is a compilation of the rules, alerts, and reports that are currently available.
  • List 2 is a compilation of the rules, alerts, and reports that are available to your hospital by request. These have been implemented at other hospitals based on their unique needs and challenges.

We update these lists regularly by posting the newest rules at the top.

List 1: Rules, alerts, and reports currently available

Infection prevention:

  • Syndromic screening for COVID-like illnesses (monitoring of vitals, imaging, and notes to identify possible patients who have not tested positive, yet need to be isolated)
  • Alerts for all who have testing ordered, as well as patients who have tested positive and negative
  • Alerts to identify patients who are at high risk and alerts to identify disease clusters
  • Rules and alerts to identify patients missed through all other means of screening and identification, i.e. leveraging ICD-10 billing codes specific to COVID-19
  • Reports to gauge the COVID-19 burden on the hospital (including data on admissions, testing, ICU utilization, ventilator utilization, and medication utilization)
  • Tools to work up employee exposures, furlough needs, testing, and disease acquisition
  • Tools that streamline reporting to public health partners. NHSN recently introduced a COVID-19 Patient Impact and Hospital Capacity Module within its Patient Safety Component. We are developing an on-demand report that includes the requested information, such as daily counts of confirmed and suspected COVID-19 patients and use and availability of beds and ventilators.

Pharmacy surveillance:

  • *NEW* Customer webinars:
    • Pharmacy Module: COVID-19 Rules and Report
      Thursday, April 9, 2020
      2:00PM- 2:20 PM CTThis webcast presentation will review potential rules around COVID-19 and a new Ad Hoc report built to identify COVID-19 patients. Register here.
    • Pharmacy Module: Managing Drug Shortages
      Tuesday, April 14th, 2020
      10:30AM-11:00 AM CTThis webcast will present all the tools within VigiLanz to effectively to manage a drug shortage. Register here.
  • Alerts when specific medications are ordered to help limit their use (and ensure the proactive identification of patients on medications that may be in short supply due to COVID-19)
  • Alerts when patients on medications that are in short supply could be switched to alternative therapies
  • Real-time reports that identify patients with active orders for particular drugs
  • Immediate notification to staff related to drug shortages and the process for handling certain drugs by using the Client Communication Tool on the VigiLanz home/landing page

In addition, we’ve created a new COVID-19 Testing Results report that can help all of your hospital’s relevant healthcare providers better care for COVID-19 patients. This report compiles all patients with a COVID-19 order, positive/negative lab result, or positive microbiology report. In addition, it includes patient demographics, clinical parameters like temperature, SpO2, FiO2, medications, and discharge disposition. As with all of our reports, it can be exported to Excel after it’s generated.

List 2: COVID-19 rules, alerts, and reports available by request

Please note – these can be enabled based on your individual needs, and on the data feeds that are available at your site. Please submit an IssueTrak ticket for customized support.

Infection prevention:

  • Alerts when COVID-19 patients are readmitted
  • Alerts when patients have been discharged but test positive
  • Alerts when COVID-19 patients are discharged
  • Line list reports
  • Vented patient reports
  • COVID-19 patients that need ventilators reports
  • Expired COVID-19 patients reports
  • Total positives over time reports
  • Identify inpatients who are being prescribed inhalers but who are not under isolation

Pharmacy surveillance:

  • COVID-19 treatment ordered: remdesivir, hydroxychloroquine, chloroquine, darunavir, lopinavir, tocilizumab
  • Inhalers ordered for patients not on isolation
  • Nebulized meds ordered for COVID-19-positive patients
  • Prolonged QTc with hydroxychloroquine +/- azithromycin
  • Missing baseline QTc with hydroxychloroquine
  • Reports for a daily review of meds to minimize the number of admins/day (minimize PPE consumption)
  • Support daily medication reviews by pharmacists to minimize the number of required clinician contacts with suspected or known positive COVID-19 patients
© 2023 VigiLanz Corporation. All rights reserved. Sitemap | Events
KLAS LEADER 6 YEARS RUNNING