People, Processes and Technology: Improving the Caregiver Experience

An interview with Aundrea Mills, Chief Nursing Officer at Compass One Healthcare, and Saima Khan, Senior Vice President at Healthcare Digital

Today we are talking with Aundrea Mills, Chief Nursing Officer at Compass One Healthcare, and Saima Khan, Senior Vice President at Healthcare Digital, about how targeted technological innovations improve the experience for both patients and caregivers.

How does digital innovation translate to process improvements?

Saima: Digital transformation plays a critical role in delivering better care and better patient outcomes. We are striving to transform healthcare through technology and envision a future where patients have access to the best experiences possible, and that healthcare workers are empowered to do their best work.

How do hospitals benefit from these innovations?

Saima: Hospitals directly benefit from technology that integrates with their existing systems. Across a hospital campus, we have access now to more data than ever, whether it’s through third-party partnerships or through our own proprietary solutions. At Healthcare Digital, we offer end-to-end solutions that function across departments in any healthcare setting. This relieves pressure on clinical and operational staff, helping keep them focused on clinical tasks.

How can these tools improve processes?

Aundrea: We are collaborating, using these insights, and listening to nurse feedback to help keep hospital staff true to their mission, to their vision, and to their values. My goal is to fully align with nursing staff by creating engagement tools targeted at keeping nurses at top of license while also enhancing patient satisfaction.

Can you tell me more about the solutions?

Samia: Our proprietary MyDining product suite includes several applications. MyDining, our core patient meal ordering and menu management application, allows Patients to place their orders via a call center, or through Patient Dining Associates who visit their rooms to assist them.   In addition to our core product, we have MyDelivery, our patient tray tracking application; MyMeal, our patient meal self-ordering app, which gives patients greater control over in-room dining, and TaskVue, our nursing engagement tool.

We have used the data through MyDining to enhance this suite to include the additional products, creating additional capabilities that further support operators and food and nutrition managers. MyDining is the starting point for driving an exceptional patient experience.

What does the evolution for this platform look like?

Saima: We have added and enhanced 2 solutions in the suite—MyMeal and TaskVue. My Meal allows users to customize their meals based on dietary needs, preferences and restrictions, ensuring they receive the right nutrition to support their recovery. The solution works seamlessly with MyDining, allowing patients to place orders independently, and  operators and healthcare workers to focus on their core work. The tool offers autonomy and ease of use, and for those visiting a patient, they can order a guest tray and caregivers have the option to share a meal with patients without leaving the bedside. With TaskVue, we used the insights from Aundrea and her team to create a better experience for nursing staff.

Aundrea: Our objective with Task Vue is to create a nursing-specific engagement tool. The combined platform is aimed at enhancing patient care, by delivering prompt updates and information in one location. This eliminates last-minute process changes, and it ensures timely tray delivery without disrupting nurse workflows. With real-time updates, you’ll spend less time manually tracking statuses across teams and more time providing quality care.

What happens without an integrated tool like this in place?

Aundrea: Realistically, a typical nursing unit could spend nearly 3 hours during a shift on non-clinical tasks, on the phone with patient-meal assist, checking the status of meal order or making edits. Our goal is to transform visibility, optimize clinical time, and enhance communication. Task Vue supports care clinicians by removing one more obstacle that could potentially keep them from the bedside. Time is the most important asset that nurses have. I’ve seen firsthand the need for a product like TaskeVue. By automating non-clinical tasks, we give time back and allow them to refocus on clinical tasks.

How do these innovations impact the overall experience?

Saima: At Healthcare Digital, we know that technology is going to continue to evolve. By partnering with Aundrea and her team, we can ensure that these innovations create actionable insights that solve real problems and provide relief— whether it’s from a workload standpoint or to just simply give nurses access to food on their shifts, because they’re focused on patient care.

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Healthcare Digital, a division of Compass Digital, works directly with Morrison Healthcare to accelerate technology innovation and digital transformation across the rapidly expanding Compass Group healthcare sectors.