How Health First Improved DKA Care With Pharmacy Surveillance Software
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Health First, a nonprofit hospital system in Central Florida, operates four different locations with 1,000 total beds and a decentralized pharmacy team. The facility’s pharmacists frequently work in areas away from their patients, depending on EHR data and pharmacy surveillance tools to guide care decisions.
To improve outcomes for patients with diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) – a serious and potentially life-threatening complication of diabetes – Health First’s tele-ICU pharmacy team sought to measure the impact of pharmacist-led interventions. Their goal was to better understand how these interventions compared to standard care.
Data-driven insights clarify treatment trends
Health First turned to Inovalon’s VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance™ for detailed patient data and reporting capabilities that allowed the team to analyze DKA treatment across multiple variables.
“There is so much flexibility with report building, which is the golden gem when it comes to this solution,” said Mike Sanchez, System Clinical Pharmacy Manager at Health First. “Many do not know what you can really do when it comes to reporting, and the amount of time saved in data pulls was outstanding.”
With help from Inovalon’s clinical team, Health First built a custom report capturing everything they needed to understand DKA treatment trends – patient inclusion and exclusion criteria, time to resolution, insulin type, and hypoglycemia events. The report also included key lab metrics such as serum bicarbonate levels, arterial pH, glucose, and renal function. Together, these insights helped the team establish a clearer picture of their treatment approaches and outcomes.
Clinical collaboration makes reporting faster and easier
Health First wasn’t alone in building the reports. Inovalon’s pharmacy team, each member with more than a decade of pharmacy experience, collaborated closely to streamline the process and pull the right data quickly.
“It would have taken our team months of manually pulling data and running the analytics otherwise,” said Sanchez. “With Inovalon’s clinical support, you have a dedicated clinician that can help you narrow down and customize reporting, saving us lots of time.”
With access to near real-time data, the team could evaluate the difference pharmacist-led care made in resolving DKA. Health First saw that these patients experienced shorter time intervals between lab draws and treatment decisions, along with higher volumes of insulin and fluids administered compared to protocol-driven therapy.
A better understanding of care, powered by better data
With VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance and Inovalon’s clinical expertise, Health First unlocked a faster, clearer way to analyze complex patient data. This gave the tele-ICU team measurable evidence of the value pharmacists deliver, which helped improve care for some of the system’s most vulnerable patients.
As Health First experienced, VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance empowers pharmacists with timely, detailed data to identify care needs and improve outcomes. Built by clinicians for clinicians, the solution supports faster decision-making with the information teams need most.
Discover how the right data, delivered at the right moment, can transform care.
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