Workflows and the movement of patient data throughout any healthcare organization is important, but it’s especially crucial when misinformation or lack of timeliness can be the difference between life and death for a patient.
But, luckily for you, this is where Admission-Discharge-Transfer solutions (like Epic Prelude and Grand Central) come in to help manage, move, store, and share patient data more easily and efficiently across your organization.
Read on to learn how Epic ADT solutions can improve the quality of care for your patients, as well as where Surety’s senior-level Epic consultants can fit in your facility.
What Does ADT Mean in Healthcare Organizations?
Admission-Discharge-Transfer (ADT) is one of the most critical workflows within your healthcare organization, and ADT systems are designed to track patient stays from the time they’re admitted to the hospital to the time they are discharged or transferred.
ADT systems also support the management and maintenance of patient medical record information for patients, including their name, age, contact information, and medical record numbers.
And, with advanced storage and management functions for patient data, healthcare providers can keep the most valuable patient information in one place and share records across business units and facilities for better care across the board.
What is Epic ADT?
Epic ADT (now called Epic Grand Central) is an Admission-Discharge-Transfer solution that allows organizations to improve bed utilization and more efficiently manage hospital stays from pre-admission procedures through the point of discharge or transfer.
The ADT solution in Epic provides the tools and resources needed for users to optimize patient tracking activities and acts as a sort of “Grand Central Station” for patient data, including location tracking, patient transport, and bed planning across organizations.
What is Epic Prelude?
Prelude is Epic’s patient registration and monitoring system that gives clinicians and other hospital staff members the functionality needed to track patient statuses from the beginning of their hospital stay to the end and everything in between.
The Prelude solution manages insurance functions for patients throughout the hospital and maintains clear, well-defined registration procedures and regulations for admitted patients.
And, with the Prelude module, Epic users are enabled to…
- Manage admission, discharge, transfer processes and protocols more efficiently
- Maintain accuracy and reliability of important patient information
- Connect insurance providers to clinical staff and admitted patients
- Ensure proper documentation, coverage, and financial assistance for patients
What is Epic Grand Central?
Grand Central is Epic’s enterprise Admission-Discharge-Transfer solution designed to help Epic users track and manage patient stays more efficiently and ensure correct documentation for patient appointments, procedures, and movement throughout the organization.
Epic Grand Central gives users the functionality needed to…
- Track patient transport into, within, and out of the hospital
- Manage multi-facility bed planning and movement
- Leverage built-in utilization reports and analytics to track progress
- Monitor housekeeping tasks throughout the organization
- Optimize patient and facility location tracking
How Do Epic Prelude and Grand Central Work Together?
While Epic Prelude focuses more on managing patient registration, status, identity, and disposition throughout their patient experience, Grand Central optimizes patient-tracking functions and offers additional support resources to simplify patient care practices.
The solutions do share quite a few commonalities and oftentimes work in conjunction with each other, but while the Prelude module still focuses most of its efforts on tracking patient disposition and managing insurance functions, Grand Central works to ensure that ADT functions are used properly to track and maintain patient stay practices.
Let’s take Patient A, for example…
Patient A gets admitted into the hospital for a complication with his recent heart procedure. The nursing staff and clinicians assigned to Patient A will leverage Epic Prelude functionality to assess their current status and manage all of the pre-admission documentation practices and paperwork for newly-admitted patients.
Once Patient A is admitted and all of the preliminary paperwork is complete, members of the hospital staff assigned to the patient can use advanced analytics and reporting functionality to simplify patient care practices and leverage Epic software to improve the quality of care throughout the entire patient lifecycle.
Key Advantages of Epic ADT Solutions
It’s no secret that Epic modules are built and designed to facilitate better care management across healthcare organizations, promote collaboration between departments and teams, and improve the quality of patient care, no matter what.
Let’s take a closer look at a few of the key advantages of ADT Epic solutions…
1) Improved Quality of Care
Epic’s ADT solutions help enhance the quality of patient care by offering improved data maintenance and organization practices designed to increase the availability, accessibility, and accuracy of patient data and medical records throughout an organization.
With better utilization of medical records and comprehensive patient history, nursing staff and clinicians assigned to any given patient will have the tools and resources needed to view data for their own patients, assess any issues or discrepancies in data or care plans, provide accurate and reliable care plans for patients, and uphold time and quality standards in the process.
2) Seamless ADT Integrations & Interoperability
As a part of the suite of Epic modules with pre-built integrations, Epic ADT solutions are able to seamlessly connect to other modules, applications, and tools within the Epic system without ever missing a beat.
So, in situations that require top-notch Admission-Discharge-Transfer functionality to properly monitor patient check-in or optimize managed care administration across facilities, Epic solutions like Grand Central, Prelude, and Cadence can work together to achieve better quality of care and improved patient satisfaction.
ADT interfaces also enhance interoperability between systems by improving accessibility to important patient information and notifying users when changes are made to a patient’s care plan, status, or location throughout the facility. With this kind of interoperability, clinicians and other hospital staff are enabled to make better care decisions and reduce readmission rates across the board.
3) Automatically Updated Medical Records
Epic ADT solutions automatically collect and update patient information and create workflows that not only track the data as it moves through the system, but also store it in a single, unified location.
With data automation like this, healthcare providers can leverage up-to-date patient data, improved analytics, and better insights to improve the overall reliability of patient information across departments and specialties.
Partnering with the Best
Whether you need help choosing the right Epic modules to meet the needs of your outpatient and specialty clinics, additional support integrating Prelude and Grand Central functions across departments, or anything else related to Epic systems, Surety Systems is here to help.
Our team of senior-level Epic consultants has the technical skills, functional expertise, and real-world experience needed to lead your organization to success, no matter how complicated your Epic system is or how extensive your project needs are. We’ve got the perfect fit for you!
And, to give you a better idea of what to expect when partnering with Surety, we’ve included a sample profile of one of our Epic ADT consultants…
Surety Senior Epic ADT Consultant
- 9 years of Epic Go-Live Training experience
- Specialization in ADT, Prelude, Cadence, and Grand Central Training
- User and Front-Desk support (documentation, intake calls, tickets, troubleshooting,etc.) for Prelude module during pre and post go-live
- Expertise in Grand Central Admission Support – Pre-Registration, Check-In, Admitting, Pending an Admission, Payments, Balances, Office Manager, etc.
- End User and Consulting experience
Getting Started with Us
Interested in learning more about our Epic consulting services? Ready to get started on a project with one of our Epic project managers or module-specific consultants?
Contact us today to get connected with one of our Epic experts!
