SAN DIEGO, Oct. 8, 2008 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Skylight Healthcare Systems(r), the leading provider of interactive patient care systems, recently concluded its 2nd Annual Client Conference -- Enhancing the Patient Care Continuum'08 -- at the historic Hotel del Coronado in San Diego, CA. Having introduced the first-ever nationwide conference focusing on interactive patient care in 2007, this year's event was highlighted by record attendance which was more than double Skylight's 2007 conference.
The conference featured groundbreaking presentations detailing how a select number of America's most progressive hospitals are using Skylight ACCESS to help them more readily deliver on commitments to patient satisfaction, meet evolving clinical and safety demands, support best practices, and enhance their competitive position through service excellence. Participants were engaged with a series of informative and compelling presentations including:
* Achieving Higher Patient Satisfaction and HCAHPS Scores: Parrish Medical Center in Titusville, FLA launches a hospital-wide initiative to use real time patient feedback, service alerting and service recovery to support its drive towards service excellence by integrating the use of Skylight's ACCESS system as an integral part of its strategic initiatives. * Transforming the Discharge Process: Health First Hospitals on Florida's Space Coast were able to eliminate confusion and frustration from their discharge planning process while realizing significant revenue opportunities from outpatient services and integration with its retail pharmacy. * Launching a Next Generation Patient Education Strategy: As part of the Mayo Health System, Luther Midelfort was able to significantly increase nursing time at the bedside, nursing satisfaction, and overall patient satisfaction while greatly increasing the number of health education viewings on a monthly basis. * Enhancing the Patient Experience with Custom Interfaces and Content: St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis demonstrated their ability to quickly customize the patient experience by deploying custom and unique interfaces and content for their three facilities including St. Vincent Indianapolis, Peyton Manning Children's Hospital and St. Vincent Women's Hospital * Quest for Excellence: Prioritization of Initiatives: Sharp Grossmont Hospital of San Diego shared the lessons learned on the journey to excellence in being recognized with the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award and Magnet status along with how the Skylight ACCESS system has been used as a key tool to drive Patient Satisfaction. * Optimizing Service Recovery Opportunities: University of Tennessee Medical Center demonstrated how they manage the entire "service recovery loop", from initial identification of a patient issue real time, to making sure the issue was addressed in a timely fashion, by the use of Skylight's close-loop service recovery system. This has greatly improved patient satisfaction scores and delivered a valuable management tool for service excellence
As part of the Skylight keynote address, David Schofield, Skylight President and CEO, covered industry trends impacting the need for improving the patient experience, and the impact of healthcare consumers choosing how and when the want to be treated. He also highlighted the growing adoption of interactive patient care systems and how Skylight has the ability to respond to these significant trends by providing the appropriate information at critical times throughout the patient care continuum -- from pre-admittance to post-discharge. Presenting the company's strategic vision was energizing to the crowd as it reinforced how Skylight has been proven to positively impact how hospitals achieve their goals of improved patient satisfaction, increased staff productivity and satisfaction, increased revenue, cost savings, and improved communications for all stakeholders leading to a much better patient experience. Skylight CTO Rick Holbrook then presented live product demonstrations of the technologies and services that will support the company direction.
"The quality of speakers and topics was excellent as they were able to focus on the issues that matter most to hospital leadership," commented Rick Mace, CEO of Adventist Bolingbrook Hospital in Chicago, Ill. "Additionally, it gave me a great opportunity to validate our strategy around interactive patient systems, and to provide my input directly to the entire Skylight team."
In addition to speakers from select hospitals, attendees were treated to insightful presentations from recognized healthcare industry experts including:
* The Advisory Board Company of Washington DC covered emerging industry trends related to Design of the Consumer Focused Facility * Starizon of Keystone, CO presented case studies on transforming the patient experience.
"We were overwhelmed and gratified with the positive response to this event, and the fact that close to 100% of attendees 'strongly agreed' with the statement that they would attend this conference again," said David Schofield, President and CEO of Skylight. "Over the next twelve months, we will begin executing on the 1st phase of our strategic vision and will be rolling out the next wave of enhancements to Skylight ACCESS as we extend our product offering across the entire continuum of care."
About Skylight Health Systems
Skylight(r) Healthcare Systems is the industry pioneer and leader in interactive patient care technology. With patient communication as the cornerstone of a safe, comfortable and clinically optimal hospital experience, the Skylight ACCESS(r) Interactive Patient System encourages patient and family to actively participate in their health care, improves communication between staff and patient/family members, and can provide a smoother and faster recovery and discharge plan. Skylight's vision is to provide hospitals with a robust tool which will allow them to greatly enhance interactive communication along the entire patient care continuum. In nearly 15,000 installed locations, leading hospital administrators have confidently selected Skylight Healthcare Systems as the proven choice for their interactive patient care technology. Skylight Healthcare Systems is headquartered in San Diego, California. For more information about Skylight Healthcare Systems, please visit: www.skylight.com.
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