Grady Health System and Care Logistics, the leader in care coordination and patient progression solutions, announced they have signed a five-year contract to improve patient experience by implementing greater efficiencies in the delivery of patient care.

Care Logistics will begin implementation of its proprietary Hospital Operating System at Grady this summer to help meet the operational challenges of one of the nation's largest safety net hospitals.

With Care Logistics, Grady is poised to improve patient throughput, quality, and experience while creating capacity for growth. As a result, Grady expects to experience year-over-year savings that will go directly back into serving their patients and community.

"We look forward to our partnership to improve patient experience and build upon the strides Grady has already made in our financial well-being, investing in new services, and improving the quality of care for our patients and community," said CEO John M. Haupert. "With its focus on well-defined roles and responsibilities, the partnership also reinforces our commitment to employee engagement and retention."

For decades, Grady has managed a large, complex patient load and shouldered millions of dollars in indigent and charity care.  Combining these challenges and managing a sizable facility and staff makes organization-wide coordination of care difficult to achieve.

"Hospital leaders and care providers are faced with enormous challenges today," said Karl Straub, President of Care Logistics. "We are pleased to partner with Grady in transforming their operations to meet those challenges.  By focusing on delivering efficient, reliable, and predictable care across their organization, Grady is ensuring a high-performance environment that delivers positive outcomes for patients."

Under the Hospital Operating System, Grady and Care Logistics will seek to improve patient outcomes in part by ensuring all patients are managed toward an appropriate length of stay and a timely and appropriate discharge. Research shows that patients with unnecessary, extended hospital stays risk more negative outcomes including greater chances of injury and contracting other illnesses.

The Care Logistics Hospital Operating System will also:

• Improve coordination between all patient care areas such as diagnostic areas, nursing units, the emergency department, surgical & procedural services, etc. Currently, coordination can be complicated and result in delays to patient progression and discharge.

• Create a common patient progression plan and length-of-stay target that is shared hospital-wide so the patient's care team can access it and stay the course to keep the patient on schedule to their targeted treatment and recovery plan.

• Improve bed placement and management of beds and staff to insure patients are being placed in units that will give them optimal care based on their needs.

• Resolve and eliminate barriers so that patients progress more easily to their discharge target.

Haupert said the Hospital Operating System will support Grady's commitment to the community.

"At Grady, we strive to improve the health of the community by providing high quality healthcare in a compassionate and fiscally responsible manner," Haupert said.  "With its focus on patient-centered care progression, the Care Logistics system will play a key role in empowering us to achieve this."