By K. Richard Douglas
On April 9, 2021, Rush University System for Health administered its 100,000th dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. It was administered in the medical center’s impressive Edward A. Brennan Entry Pavilion.
The health system is comprised of Rush University Medical Center, Rush Copley Medical Center, Rush Oak Park Hospital and Rush University, as well as an extensive providers’ network and numerous outpatient care facilities.
The teaching hospital ranks 17th on the Best Hospitals Honor Roll, according to U.S. News and World Report.
Like many health care providers across the country, Rush University Medical Center has taken on the challenge to help mitigate the concerns and health needs of the people it serves. The center serves the Chicago community.
Managing this impressive health system’s medical equipment is the TRIMEDX Clinical Engineering Department at Rush Copley Medical Center.
In addition to managing the equipment at the 210-bed medical center, the clinical engineering team provides service to Rush Copley Medical Group clinics, the Midwest Center of Advanced Imaging and Rush Copley Urgent Care Yorkville.
Team members include Director Mikhail Ostrov, Senior Site Manager Shawn Molloy and Supervisor Brian Sexton in leadership.
The team also includes Cody Goodbear, ISE III; Kelly Harris, biomed III; Stephen Cadena, lab spec II; Joe Delacruz, biomed II and Jonathan Gonzalez, biomed I. They manage nearly 7,500 devices.
Molloy says that each member of the leadership team started their careers as technicians.
As the site manager, Molloy says he is able to evaluate service contract needs through the use of an array of tools, technology and data provided by TRIMEDX.
“Being a nationwide company, the site manager is able to pull data from the large scope of TRIMEDX sites at the model level and compare it to their local trends and needs,” he says.
The team also works in harmony with IT to keep the network buttoned down.
“Our clinical engineering and the hospital IT department work together to ensure the functionality and security of all medical devices. New IP “Clinical engineering works directly with IT in the integration of devices. We are grateful to our IT counterparts and how well they work with us from Rush to ensure we provide safe and secure care for our patients,” Molloy says.
The team was so effective that it earned a Pinnacle Award in 2020. The award was recognition from TRIMEDX as the best-performing site in the nation. The clinical engineering team’s value to the hospital is reflected in a net promoter score (NPS) of 9.3 out of 10.
Taking on Projects during a Pandemic
During the past year, many biomed departments have had to add special projects to address the unique needs that the COVID-19 pandemic has placed on hospitals. The clinical engineering team took on additional duties that permitted the facility to provide care for more COVID patients.
“This was a challenging year, and the team was there for each other, the hospital and the community of Aurora. COVID-19 presented challenges, as we saw surges require the conversion of general areas to ICU COVID units. TRIMEDX was at the forefront with our health care partners in the incident commands and in the frontlines providing solutions,” Molloy says.
He says during this past year, the clinical engineering team evaluated and redesigned the telemetry overview area which oversees a significant number of patients.
“With the addition of COVID units, the facility layout did not support adding additional clinical staff to monitor more patients. At no additional cost to the hospital, our team was able to install a new design that allowed for the addition of 32 beds to the monitoring system, as well as an additional clinician to monitor,” Molloy says.
“During the past year, the clinical engineering team was able to repurpose and reconfigure monitors in the intermediate care area to create additional ICU and ICU step-down beds to support the changes in hospital population and census due to COVID. These monitors were repurposed from monitors that had been upgraded, and we were able to expand the hospital’s capabilities without added cost,” Molloy adds.
He says that the clinical engineering team also played a significant part in the rollout of personal protective equipment (PPE) in support and defense of the clinical staff to ensure they could safely care for patients, adding 100 CAPR units for staff use.
The additional challenges during 2020 did not end there.
“The clinical engineering team at Rush Copley Medical Center assisted the Rush University medical team with the check-in and implementation of over 5,000 infusion pumps,” Molloy says.
The team also saved the health care system money while addressing the needs created by a surge in the number of COVID patients.
“The hospital had a 32-bed day surgery unit that it wanted to convert to an ICU with central station overview. They reached out to the vendor and were told the hospital would need to upgrade the central monitoring system to add the overview of this unit. This would be a million-dollar project,” Molloy says.
He says that the clinical engineering team evaluated the system and found a small modification that would provide the overview of the beds with no cost and no need to upgrade. The modification was done very quickly, and the health care team was able to care for a larger amount of COVID patients during the surge.
The team of HTM professionals at Rush Copley have been an invaluable asset to clinicians and patients. It has proven worthy of the prestigious award that it earned.
“The purpose of the TRIMEDX Site Excellence Awards is to recognize sites that demonstrate excellence throughout the year. Excellence is measured through nine key factors, including customer satisfaction, associate engagement, service delivery performance and commitment to continuous improvement. Our Pinnacle Award winner represents the top performing site out of all TRIMEDX sites nationally within the TRIMEDX organization,” says Jay Khan, executive vice president and transformation officer at TRIMEDX.
As a biomed team who has set the gold standard during a pandemic, this group of biomeds has proven that they can excel even in the most challenging of times.
