March 14, 2024:
RLDatix announced the winners of the 2024 RLDatix Connector Awards on the final day of Palooza 2024 | Connected Healthcare. The awards honor outstanding contributions to patient safety, operational and financial efficiency and transformational change across an organization – including compliance, credentialing, provider management, workforce management, risk and safety and more.
The winners, Doug Coleman, Senior Program Manager at ChristianaCare; Maureen D'Agostino, Corporate Vice President at McLaren Health Care; and Linda Bucklen, Senior Project Manager and System Administrator at UPMC, were invited onto the stage to discuss how their teams were driving safer care, better outcomes and operational change and innovation.
By showcasing initiatives that exemplify the value of connected healthcare operations, RLDatix seeks to inspire and advance its vision of safer, more connected healthcare for all. Each winner received a $1,000 award and three free passes to Palooza 2025 in San Diego. Learn about the 2024 Connector Award winners below.
Empower Award
This category aims to highlight the power of transparency in healthcare, awarded to an initiative advancing a proactive culture of continuous improvement.
Winner: Doug Coleman, ChristianaCare
The ChristianaCare team found new ways to leverage their existing instance of RL6 to advance follow-up and improvement measures around hospital-acquired infections. They used tailored ICAST forms to enhance data collection and deliver shared learnings, providing caregivers with easy-to-use dashboards that transparently showcase trends and help foster continuous improvements to mission-critical safety measures.
“Collecting data and leveraging the RL6 application that’s already ingrained within our organization has given us an opportunity to streamline processes,” Coleman said. “It’s been transformational for us.”
Innovate Award
This category celebrates activating transformational change, awarded to an initiative that addresses organizational challenges.
Winner: Maureen D'Agostino, McLaren Health Care
McLaren set its health system on a trajectory to success by rolling out rounding across the organization. Just a few years ago, they had no accreditation or compliance program and were on the bottom quartile of organizations surveyed by The Joint Commission. In just three years, they reached the top decile and successfully completed the survey cycle — continuing to leverage Converge to keep them on track and drive even greater reductions in findings for years to come. By coupling their instance of Converge with comprehensive training, standardization, specialized resources, and incentive-driven programs, the health system went from limited survey readiness to advanced preparedness and continuous, cross-system learning built around data-driven insights and the pursuit of high reliability.
“[McLaren] brought me in specifically to change the culture, and I immediately said, ‘I need a database, and [RL6] is the product I want,’” D’Agostino said. “First cycle reported no condition levels, whereas the second cycle reported no condition levels and a 10% reduction [in Joint Commission findings over the previous cycle].”
Catalyze Award
This category honors the hard work on the road to high reliability, awarded to an initiative improving patient safety outcomes and/or driving operational and financial efficiencies.
Winner: Linda Bucklen, UPMC
As UPMC shifted from its legacy operating model, Linda led the charge in reducing administrative waste, shortening turnaround times and delivering leading risk mitigation practices through RLDatix’s Contract Lifecycle Management software. By building more standardized outputs, automated alerts, comprehensive dashboards, document version controls and eSignature for paperless processing, her organization was able to improve accuracy, reduce processing errors by 100% and handle exponential growth within their contracting environment.
“When we put the implementation team together, we involved end users. They assisted with testing to ensure they felt their voices were heard,” Bucklen said. “We developed a training program to ensure all participants understood the process and were able to enter into the system before they left, which alleviated the fear of the unknown and created buy-in.”
In addition to the awards ceremony, Palooza Day Three featured more sessions from industry leaders on safer care and organizational change, including:
-
Care for the Caregiver | Exploring Peer Support and Second Victim Support Strategies
Jason Tabor, Manager of Risk and Regulatory Management at City of Hope -
From Silos to System | Standardizing Policy and Practice in a Multi-Entity Health Care System
Maida Montemayor, QHS Policy Program Coordinator at The Queen's Health System -
Currency for Culture Change | Implementing Accreditation & Regulatory for Patient Readiness
Melissa Hale, Senior Corporate Director Accreditation & Licensure at Centra
Throughout the last day, attendees witnessed stories and case studies exemplifying the ability to catalyze real change and harness the power of connected healthcare operations.