Melius Outcomes’ new app revolutionizes the meaning “quality care” in today’s health industry
Madison, WI – Ditching the skin-tight suit and Vibranium shield for a lab coat and scrubs, today’s superheroes are saving lives through the magic of application technology.
Dr. AkkeNeel Talsma (PhD, RN, FAAN), UW-Madison’s Walter Schraeder Chair for Nursing, has worked around the Midwest as a nurse in quality improvement for over 20 years. Growing tired of collecting data on legal pads and excel spread sheets, and running pivot tables to generate reports, she felt hospitals were too focused on collecting data and not enough on implementing changes.
Quality reporting describes the information clinicians need to become informed about a hospital’s quality of care. This includes costs, patient information and data analyses. For example, if a patient develops an infection, questions that would arise include: did this patient get the right antibiotic? Was the skin cleaned before incision? Was the air filtering appropriate?
Unfortunately, the burden of quality reporting is falling on nurses, which steals time from patients. Nurses chase data, running from department to department, from one hospital to the next. But by the time they’ve acquired the necessary information, a new cycle of information has been reported, and they’re back to square one with no time to fix quality problems.
“Having insights on how we “dropped the ball” is critical to improving a hospital’s internal processes. So many clinicians do excellent work but we never see it, nor are we able to easily spot problems and fix them before they get too large,” Talsma says.
“Often nurses can’t access the data they need. Even with access, some don’t know what to do with that data and are sitting there at 9pm googling answers just like the rest of us. You do not want to run your quality department like that.”
Determining something must be done, Talsma established Melius Outcomes in July 2015. Her two Operating Room (OR) nurses Melissa Bathish (PhD, RN, PNP) and Cathy Kleiner (PhD, RN) joined in 2016.
Melius Outcomes is a Software as a Service (SaaS) business where data analytics and quality reporting occur “in the cloud” and are released to user devices, like PCs, tablets, and smart phones, through an app.
Similar to a “fitbit” telling you to drink more water or get your steps in order to maintain your health, Melius Outcomes has immediate insight into problems and will provide on-the-spot solutions and online resources without the guesswork.
“From COOs to OR Directors and nurses, we make everyone’s jobs easier while improving patient outcomes and the hospital’s reputation by dramatically affecting the bottom line,” says Talsma. And Melius Outcomes is really affecting the bottom line.
In 2015 they launched their 25-hospital pilot program. The pilot gives users either daily, weekly, or monthly updated measures and benchmarks that are linked with specific quality improvement resources. These include recommendations to address lagging performance, immediate access to pertinent references and websites, sample policy language, and QI tools to implement specific strategies.
The pilot resulted in a reduction in a number of important health metrics—a 50% decrease in life-threatening bacterial infections like sepsis, 20% in other surgical site infections, 30% in pressure ulcers, and 30% reduction in patient mortality rates. Moreover, the hospitals saved $1 to $2 million dollars annually! And for employees, the pilot resulted in better job satisfaction and less burnout.
Picture courtesy of Melius Outcomes.com.
Talsma’s team is also participating in the 2018 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest; they rank in the top 20 businesses. She believes the business plan contest has been great and the support from the Wisconsin Technology Council is superb.
Talsma encourages other entrepreneurs to get involved in events like the 2018 Wisconsin Governor’s Business Plan Contest and take advantage of any community resources.
“The impact on me has been an extremely valuable learning experience. The community is so supportive, great insights and encouraging. Coming from nursing and academe, it was a long road to develop a concept to a business.”
Talsma hopes to reciprocate all the support she’s received by helping those interested in healthcare management to carry the torch into the future:
“I’m one of few women with a startup, out of even fewer nurses. Nurses are very innovative and creative in the workplace and I’m pleased to share my story with students and other women and nurses developing their startup.”
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