The Real-time Digital Health System: Automation for Care Operations

Increased demand for care, higher patient acuity, and critical staffing shortages. Addressing these challenges was critical to helping us achieve our vision of becoming a digital health system. As a 16-hospital, an integrated health system serving 67 counties in Missouri and Kansas, Saint Luke’s Health System has faced challenges: increased demand for care, higher patient acuity, and critical staffing shortages. Addressing these challenges was critical to helping us achieve our vision of becoming a digital health system. As part of this, we embarked on a strategic throughput initiative to improve operational efficiency and integrate care progression across the system. We believed that if we could unlock efficiency for patients in the inpatient setting, we would create downstream capacity and improve access for new patients coming in the door. Over the past few years, we have invested significantly in our Epic EHR capabilities.