Clinical Discovery Assessments Help Reveal Gaps—and Fill Them
Learn how to improve clinical and financial outcomes, staff confidence and more.
As a healthcare leader, you’re facing constant and changing challenges. From ongoing staff shortages and burnout to an aging population with greater comorbidities, it can be hard to keep ahead of it all. That’s why it’s important to have a solid framework that guides practice, starting at the bedside. An in-depth clinical assessment provides valuable information to help build that framework.
What is a clinical discovery assessment and what does it look like?
A discovery assessment helps identify areas of need and gaps in patient care, with the goal of providing insight to create a “next step” roadmap. It typically requires collecting data through channels such as:
- Interviewing clinical leaders
- Speaking with staff
- Observing storeroom setup
- Auditing practices and processes
With a summary of your findings, you’re then ready to create an action plan, which may include offering staff education that meets different learning styles, simplifying product options, or re-aligning financial and clinical goals. In the end, getting every team member on the same page is key to help improve clinical and financial outcomes.
Going it alone might feel overwhelming, so consider seeking an external partner to help traverse the road to success together. “A clinical solution specialist is an extra resource for you, someone you can count on to help with quality initiatives,” says Angela Newman, MBA-HM, BSN, RN, CCRN, VA-BC, clinical services expert at Medline. “A partner who has a background or expertise in that area or has worked with other facilities will have a unique perspective.”
3 key benefits of a clinical assessment
You can expect that an assessment will help you in three important ways:
1. Increase care consistency
An in-depth assessment helps identify variations in care that may ultimately lead to inefficiencies and poor patient outcomes. Customized clinical guidelines are an important part of the solution because they take the guesswork out of product selection and utilization.
The most beneficial guidelines have one key feature: “They’re based on new research and new information,” says Amin Setoodeh, skin health and clinical services expert at Medline. The evidence and research come first, then the products that support them, Setoodeh stresses.
“When people think about reducing care variation, the immediate connection is often to cost containment, but on the clinical side, it’s ensuring that every patient has access to the same standard and level of treatment,” says Patricia Turner BSN, RN, CWOCN, CWS, skin health clinical resources expert at Medline.
“Many times, healthcare organizations create a formulary and then tell their clinicians to make it work for the practice. To me, that’s counterproductive,” Setoodeh says, comparing it to a recipe that needs the right ingredients. “You need to make sure the products you provide your caregivers are designed to support the practice, not vice versa.”
Clinical guidelines developed based on your discovery assessment make it easy for staff to know the right product to use for the right patient. The outcome is better patient care and more time for personal interactions with patients.
2. Improve financial efficiency
Clinical guidelines that empower staff to follow evidence-based best practices ultimately help prevent hospital-associated conditions, which reduces product and treatment costs.
Remember, you can have the least expensive products available, but if you’re not using them efficiently, you end up spending a lot more. In addition, when you have customized clinical guidelines, onboarding frequent staff turnover turns into a minor blip, instead of a big problem. Setoodeh likens guidelines to your “secret sauce.”
3. Boost nurse confidence
A discovery assessment often uncovers gaps in education, not surprising considering the number of novice nurses. Studies show that investing in employee education leads to higher retention. It also increases nurse confidence and knowledge.1 When caregivers feel supported and confident in their job, they’re more likely to stay “because their job is simplified in a very challenging environment,” Setoodeh says.
In-person education can help make it easier for frontline teams to follow best practices, which ultimately increases staff morale. Julie Olson, a WOC nurse at St. Luke’s Health System in Boise, Idaho, participated in a Medline training on pressure injury staging. “The education piece can be tricky,” Olson says. “Medline has done it already. Let’s not reinvent the wheel.”
In addition, nurses who feel empowered by education tend to share their new knowledge with peers, which reinforces the learning.
Gamification gets engagement
When assessments indicate gaps in education, there are many ways to help bridge that gap. One educational tool that tends to bring people together is a hands-on workshop.
At Aultman Health Systems in Canton, Ohio, a Braden Scale workshop was key to helping staff improve patient outcomes. It started with a discovery assessment conducted by Medline. “Throughout that process, we identified that there was a gap in nursing knowledge around skin care, prevention of pressure injuries and the assessments that are related to them,” says Aultman’s RN Clinical Quality Coach, Shannon Carani, BSN, RN, WCC, OMS.
Facilitated by a Medline clinical nurse educator, the Braden Scale workshop teaches concepts and critical thinking skills in a quick 15- or 20-minute competition-style activity, complete with betting (fake money, of course) on confidence in answering Braden Scale questions.
“If they’re right, they get their money back, and if they’re wrong, they lose it,” Carani says. “So you’re really betting on yourself.” When nurses get it wrong, the facilitator adds more explanation. “It was really cool to see the light bulbs go on. And they had fun.”
After the workshop, Carani says there was a noticeable difference in nursing practice. “They felt more comfortable completing the Braden Scale and interpreting the results of it.”
An in-depth clinical discovery assessment can help your team reveal gaps in care consistency and education. By analyzing results, you or your clinical partner can develop a path to improve clinical and financial outcomes, and empower staff to follow best practices. This kind of structured approach helps you overcome today’s challenges and gets you prepared for those you’ll face in the future.
According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 1 in every 31 hospital patients has a healthcare associated infection on any given day.2 While some progress has been made to decrease the rates, HAIs are still a major risk.
FirstHealth of the Carolinas and Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh looked to Medline’s Urological Solution and Vascular Access Health Solution clinical assessments to help reverse HAIs.
At FirstHealth, the assessment revealed that, while 100% of patient drain bags were located below the bladder, only 28% were without dependent loops; and 83% of catheters were properly secured, but only 7% of bed sheet clamps were engaged.
“We were actually able to see what our problems were—dependent loops and use of sheet clamps—to focus our energies and education there. What we realized is that we need to get back to basics on our catheter care and maintenance,” says Jayne P. Lee, MPH, BSN, RN, CIC, FAPIC, director of infection control and patient safety at FirstHealth. Medline posters helped to reinforce these protocols.
Lee specifically called out Medline’s education kits—including cards, flyers and posters—which allow infection preventionists and nurse leaders “to pick and choose what’s right for your staff.”
Allegheny General’s discovery assessment was in May 2021 with Medline. Results showed, “It was the little things that we missed,” says Susan Baker, BSN, RN, a nurse at Allegheny General. One of those little things was the fact that “people were not using securement devices” or Foley kickstands, Baker explains. “We spent time with Medline. We did a lot of education around that.”
Later that year, only two Foleys were without a securement device at Allegheny General, down from a typical monthly rate of 100. There’s also a lot more discussion and consideration on whether or not a Foley is necessary. “When you know what the right thing to do is, it’s really hard not to do that,” Baker says.