A Case Study on Medical Collaboration

Effective collaboration and streamlined communication are critical for providing high-quality patient care [1]. This case study explores the power of C8 Health, a clinical knowledge management and frontline team collaboration Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) product in a hospital setting, enabling seamless access to locally vetted guidance for the entire healthcare team. Learn how this solution impacted dissemination of and adherence to locally vetted guidance during the COVID-19 pandemic enhancing efficiency, and improving patient care.

The Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), the largest hospital system in Switzerland (5 hospitals and approximately 2,000 hospital beds), recognized the need for a more efficient and standardized approach to knowledge sharing across teams, departments and hospital sites. This need was accentuated during the Covid19 pandemic. They partnered with C8 Health. The C8 Health platform manages and disseminates vetted medical guidance and streamlines communications with a user-friendly interface

During the Covid19 pandemic, The region of Geneva, Switzerland had the highest incidence of Covid19 infections in Europe. The Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), who was responsible for all the regional Covid19 related care, faced important challenges in training health professionals and disseminating updated medical guidance.

In fact, there was an acute need for the rapid training of health professionals from diverse disciplines to work in Covid-related care, even without prior experience. This training focused on imparting knowledge about the virus, its transmission, clinical presentation, and treatment plans while emphasizing infection prevention and control measures. The goal was to ensure that these professionals were equipped with the necessary skills and understanding to provide safe and competent care to patients. In addition, the HUG faced the challenge of making sure medical teams kept up-to-date with an overwhelming amount of information updating frequently as new knowledge came out almost on a daily basis.

To overcome these challenges, HUG deployed the C8 Health cloud-based clinical guidance management platform across the hospital system.Before implementing C8, HUG did not have a centralized platform to allow efficient dissemination of medical best-practices to care teams.

C8 Health SaaS product, is a mobile and web cloud-based platform. Deployment of C8 did not require in-house IT resources. The deployment process involved customizing the system to align it with the hospital’s unique workflows and protocols. The system was set up and became operational to relevant providers within 24 hours. Following deployment, a 4 months usage analysis study was conducted prospectively [1,2].

A total of 1233 clinicians gained immediate access to the platform and to its content. In the first two weeks after deployment, the 60 Covid19 related guidance items disseminated through the platform were viewed 7740 times by clinicians. 100% of staff members on COVID wards actively used the platform during the analysis period. The study showed a correlation between the usage of the platform and the local epidemiology of Covid19 in the Geneva region during the first wave (Figure 1). This correlation was later confirmed during the second wave (Figure 2.).

Figure 1. Correlation between local epidemiology of Covid19 in the Geneva Region and usage of the platform. (First Wave)

Figure 2. Correlation between local epidemiology of Covid19 in the Geneva Region and usage of the platform. (Second Wave)

The implementation brought forth several benefits across the hospital, positively impacting collaboration and communication:

1. Fast training with support for providers’ safety
Easy and efficient access to all relevant medical guidance, best practices, e-learning modules and other relevant knowledge allowed clinical staff to asynchronously learn relevant procedures for Covid19 related care, reducing the need for in-person training sessions which would have increased their risk for infection [1]. Providers received immediate and streamlined notifications about updates in guidance to make sure care was based on the latest evidence. [1]

2. Streamlined Information Dissemination
The C8 Health platform facilitated centralized knowledge management and real-time access to locally vetted guidance, eliminating knowledge silos and the need to look for other sources of information, ensuring consistent and up-to-date information across the hospital system [1,2]

3. Enhanced Collaboration
With C8 Health, multidisciplinary teams from different departments could improve collaboration by aligning on up-to-date guidance about patient streamlining, treatment plans, hand-offs and transfer of care [1,2]. This was of importance due the extensive need of collaboration and alignment between stakeholders in pre-hospital care, outpatient clinics, the emergency department, the internal medicine wards, intermediate care and intensive care.

4. Time savings & Reassurance in clinical practice
C8 Health’s streamlined information retrieval, helped reduce time spent searching for guidelines and resources. The median time to access any clinical guidance in the system was 16 seconds. This increased efficiency resulted in significant time savings reported by clinicians [2], potentially freeing up time to focus more on patient care. Providers also felt reassured in their clinical practice with access to clearly stipulated and vetted instructions from their supervisors [2].

5. Increase reach of information and adherence to guidance
By providing streamlined access to locally vetted guidance and enabling communications between stakeholders and frontline teams, the platform was shown to increase the reach of updated clinical guidance to providers [1]. The use of C8 Health supported adherence to locally vetted guidance created by the hospital, and promoted an enhanced clinical decision-making process [1, 2].

The implementation of the C8 Health platform enhanced collaboration and communication at the Geneva University Hospitals during the Covid19 pandemic, providing the entire healthcare team with instant access to locally vetted guidance. Deployment of the platform allowed fast alignment of more than 1,000 health professionals from different clinical backgrounds on up-to-date Covid19 best practices, resulting in time savings for clinicians, increased reach and adherence to locally vetted guidance, and better communication and collaboration between care teams.

1. Windisch O, Zamberg I, Zanella M, Gayet-Ageron A, Blondon K, Schiffer E, Agoritsas T
Using mHealth to Increase the Reach of Local Guidance to Health Professionals as Part of an Institutional Response Plan to the COVID-19 Outbreak: Usage Analysis Study
JMIR Mhealth Uhealth 2020;8(8):e20025
URL: https://mhealth.jmir.org/2020/8/e20025
DOI: 10.2196/20025

2. Zamberg I, Manzano S, Posfay-Barbe K, Windisch O, Agoritsas T, Schiffer E
A Mobile Health Platform to Disseminate Validated Institutional Measurements During the COVID-19 Outbreak: Utilization-Focused Evaluation Study
JMIR Public Health Surveill 2020;6(2):e18668
URL: https://publichealth.jmir.org/2020/2/e18668
DOI: 10.2196/18668