Remote video auditing in healthcare: A powerful tool for patient and clinician safety culture and operational efficiencies

Medicine struggles to effect meaningful improvements in patient safety that do not come at the expense of efficiency. Rarer still are evidence-based tools that can provide sustained safer care while delivering operational efficiencies that produce better clinical and financial outcomes. This paper describes how Northwell Health, New York’s largest health-care provider, has instituted innovative remote video auditing (RVA) technology in its operating rooms, intensive care units and hospital floors, and the results it has achieved in nearly a decade of progressive applications and expanding adoption across its 23 hospitals. The paper demonstrates that implementation of this technology, which is compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), and associated change management, has improved culture and productivity in the operating room and hospital-wide. Benefits achieved through the RVA-with-feedback methodology include increased capacity, improved first-case starts, higher compliance with hand hygiene and the surgical safety checklist, reduced surgical site infections, shorter room turnover and expedited patient flow. The associated increases in patient and surgeon satisfaction, and significant financial savings, have substantial implications for hospitals seeking new pathways to enhanced patient safety and profitability.