Piedmont Healthcare Expands Use of VIZZIA Technologies Process Improvement Solutions

  ATLANTA, GA - 09/15/2016 (PRESS RELEASE JET)

Piedmont Healthcare is expanding and standardizing its deployment of Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) technologies to drive process improvement. With longtime partner, VIZZIA Technologies, Piedmont will continue improving its distribution and management of moveable medical equipment, as well as its environmental monitoring practices, by standardizing on the VIZZIA solutions platform at all of its facilities.

One of Georgia’s largest healthcare systems, Piedmont has been using VIZZIA solutions successfully at its flagship hospital – Piedmont Atlanta - for many years. This latest expansion has already begun, with deployments to Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Piedmont Fayette Hospital in Fayetteville, and Piedmont Mountainside Hospital in Jasper. The program will continue expanding to Piedmont Newnan Hospital later this year, Piedmont Newton Hospital in Covington next year and other Piedmont hospitals as the organization continues to grow.

In addition to being one of Metro Atlanta’s major healthcare providers, Piedmont is one of the area’s largest employers. According to Jeff Allen, Executive Director for Piedmont’s Biomedical & Capital Project Management, “Standardizing the Piedmont RTLS infrastructure on the VIZZIA platform and their process improvement methodologies offers us the opportunity to make the work environment for our clinical staff better, safer and more beneficial for patients.”

“We’re thrilled to be expanding the use of VIZZIA’s process improvement solutions because we know from experience that VIZZIA helps our staff do a better job,” says Allen. “And by standardizing, it will also help us transfer best practices and lessons-learned from one location to others more easily, and tap into the creativity and effectiveness of our entire team.”

Piedmont’s decade-long relationship with VIZZIA began in 2006, when the Georgia-based healthcare provider’s Atlanta hospital was working to improve efficiency and productivity. One key element of that overhaul was to improve management of their moveable medical equipment (MME). Like many hospitals, Piedmont Atlanta struggled to keep track of its fleet of MME and hospital staff wasted valuable time searching for and cleaning MME, while lost and stolen MME resulted in cost overruns.

VIZZIA President and CEO Andrew Halasz recalls: “Piedmont was facing exactly the kinds of challenges that most hospitals have and that our solutions were designed to address. We were able to help them turn that problem into a great benefit. We gave them visibility to the movements and utilization of MME, while supplying highly relevant data, and an equipment distribution process that enabled their teams to give clinicians the equipment they needed when they needed it for their patients, without lost time searching for and cleaning the equipment.” Halasz went on to say, “Deploying the technology alone is not enough. We help change the process and use the data from the technology to continuously improve. That’s what delivers the largest amount of value.”

VIZZIA first stepped in to provide Piedmont Atlanta with a Passive RFID Management System. VIZZIA’s entry-level system helped hospital staff tag and track MME, which enabled them to manage their fleet much more efficiently, leaving fewer assets idle, and preventing costly equipment loss. Since then, VIZZIA deployed a more capable RTLS tracking technology without needing to change their users’ software interface. This made the transition to new tracking technology simple, while also enabling Piedmont to do more with their technology platform. The new RTLS tracking capability, when paired with VIZZIA’s other software applications and process improvement methods, will enable additional benefits for the Piedmont team like reduced patient wait times, automated infant protection, fewer healthcare acquired infections and many other beneficial health, safety and compliance outcomes.

VIZZIA has also added a new environmental monitoring system that eliminates manual temperature logging and automatically protects the valuable contents stored in refrigerators and freezers like food, blood, clinical test samples and medications.

Allen sees all of this as a natural development for Piedmont, “Working with VIZZIA has not only solved problems, they have helped us achieve excellent results.”

A new service that VIZZIA has started providing at Piedmont hospitals is their Environmental Monitoring (EM) Alert Desk that eliminates the need for users to enter in the root-cause, corrective action and product safety data when automated temperature alerts are triggered. The EM Alert Desk will simplify the process for users to remain compliant, manage their data and utilize VIZZIA’s technology to its fullest potential.

About VIZZIA

VIZZIA Technologies is a leading provider of process improvement solutions for healthcare organizations, and is dedicated to helping customers improve operational efficiency and excellence through sensible use of technology. VIZZIA provides full-service solutions to help organizations cut costs and streamline complicated processes. For more information about VIZZIA, visit www.vizziatech.com.

About Piedmont Healthcare

Piedmont Healthcare is a private, not-for-profit organization that serves nearly two million patients primarily in North Georgia communities but also across the State. The six hospitals include Piedmont Atlanta Hospital, a 529-bed general and specialty acute-care hospital Buckhead; Piedmont Fayette Hospital, a 172-bed, acute-care community hospital in Fayetteville and one of the 100 Top Hospitals® in the nation; Piedmont Mountainside Hospital, a 52-bed community hospital in Jasper; Piedmont Newnan Hospital, a 136-bed, acute-care community hospital in Newnan; Piedmont Henry Hospital, a 215-bed acute-care community hospital in Stockbridge; and Piedmont Newton Hospital, a 97-bed acute-care community hospital in Covington. Piedmont Healthcare also is the parent company of Piedmont Heart Institute, providing integrated cardiovascular healthcare by more than 100 cardiovascular and other specialty physicians with 23 office locations; the Piedmont Physicians Group, with more than 120 primary care physicians and 70 specialty physicians in 55 offices throughout north Georgia; the Piedmont Clinic, a 1,250-member physician network; and Piedmont Healthcare Foundation, the philanthropic entity for private fundraising initiatives. For more information, visit www.piedmont.org.