Data tells a story. And when I think about data overall and I think about what different metrics we need to be able to tell that story most effectively, it’s going to be varied. And ultimately it’s tapping in all of those different data points to understand how do I tell that story of understanding exactly what’s taking place in that hospital. And more importantly, how do I take that data and figure out what change looks like?
I want to understand the variability because I want to ensure that our teams are adjusting based on the demands of a hospital. No hospital that you go into is the same day in and day out. It’s different. The hospital staffs differently. EVS should staff differently day in, day out. That’s what we do in TouchPoint. We staff differently. We staff to the organic demands of that environment.
I also want to understand the qualitative, are the outcomes where it needs to be? The first two, that’s just typical, I almost look at that as just the basics. What we need to do is we need to do that as effectively as possible while generating the best patient satisfaction outcomes while reducing HAIs for hospitals. We want patients to leave better than when they came into the hospital. We don’t want them contracting diseases. And the environment of care can be as much as 18% of a contribution to a typical C. diff infection.
Beyond that, I want turnover to be reduced. With one exception to that, one caveat, I want turnover to increase if we’re getting people better in higher skilled jobs within the hospital. If someone’s getting a better career path and we have that good turnover aspect where they’re growing their careers within one of our client’s hospitals, that’s good turnover. That turnover I like. But the other aspect of that being associate engagement, ensuring that our teams are engaged, they’re bringing their full selves to work and they’re happy to be there.
So that would be the EVS side. And the food side, I’m certainly looking at the financial impacts too. I’m looking at invoice costs and all the iterations. I’m looking at retail sales and all the iterations. If someone buys the pulled pork sandwich, what other product are they most likely to eat? What’s our popularity impacts across all of our products and how are we evolving that constantly?
So there’s obviously the financial and then there’s also the qualitative. There’s what do patients think about that overall food service? What was their patient satisfaction scores? How many people thought that that meal was excellent? And conversely, I want the reverse of that to be as low as possible. I want patient satisfaction comments that we’re analyzing to say that that was the best meatloaf they’ve ever had, that that was the best club sandwich they’ve ever had. Whatever that iteration looks like, I want that to be a meaningful moment for a patient because that’s one of those things that they can control, that they can select, and there’s so many things that they can’t select when they’re in that environment.
So with both food, with EVS, with all of our service lines, there’s the qualitative piece of the satisfaction of the experience of both our team members and also our patients and the other caregivers when you think about the ecosystem, nurses, doctors, et cetera. But it’s also the financial and making sure that we’re operating that in the most financial savvy way possible.
It’s just data points, it’s numbers on the screen. And numbers on the screen don’t tell a story. They can if they’re put together correctly. Where that becomes different is, and that’s the power of our analytics team within TouchPoint, is it’s taking those data points and turning them into actionable points that someone can make a different decision based on. It’s so that whatever query, whatever question I have, I need a data product where I can get that answer in 30 seconds or less. If I can’t do it we’ve messed up somewhere in our data product build and we’re building out a better way to get to that answer.
I want to understand top three things that I can do at any different site. I want to look at what’s working really well at one site and applying it to another. What technology do we have in place? What is the root cause of that pain point? Are we serving meals at the right time even? And we’re going to look at all of those different data points and then come up with a specialized, tailored solution that’s going to solve that pain point. If that one doesn’t work, we’re going to do it differently in another way and another way and another way until that’s solved. And when I say solved, I mean satisfaction is going up, I mean that we’re operating the best of class environment and that it’s constantly iterated. So that becomes our best area that we then take that solution into another cardiac unit and that all, that whole process gets almost institutionalized and built into that TouchPoint operating platform that then is scaled everywhere.
