Novant Health uses machine learning to streamline IT workflows

Novant Health knocks down barriers to delivering better care
In a large healthcare enterprise, doctors and nurses can quickly become bogged down by mundane internal processes.

For the team members at Novant Health, service tickets submitted to the wrong department had to be manually rerouted, adding to response time. Service desk requests led to callbacks that clinicians couldn’t take because they were with patients, and ordering supplies and new equipment was a lengthy, multi-step process that ate up clinician and support staff time.

All of that made it more difficult for those clinicians to do their job: saving people’s lives.

Novant Health’s Digital Products and Services (DPS) department needed to find new technologies to break down the internal silos that created those bloated processes. They needed technology that allowed clinicians to spend more time with patients not on processes, and allowed Novant Health to better serve its vision of delivering the most remarkable patient experience in every dimension, every time.

“Improving workflow and providing a unified internal service experience across all corporate areas would be a big help for our clinicians and other staff because then they could focus on what really matters: the patient,” says Chuck Huntley, Director of DPS Service Delivery, Novant Health.

With ServiceNow, Novant Health creates transparency, fosters collaboration, and strengthens service
Improving internal customer service and support started with investing in ServiceNow to create the system-wide transparency necessary to eliminate silos. Using the Now Platform, the DPS team created a single system for tracking incidents, requests, number of products, and investments.

“We get more granular about how investments are happening and can evaluate where resources are allocated and where we need to invest to improve service,” Chuck says.

ServiceNow handles demand management so internal support can free up clinicians to focus on patients
Novant Health rolled out ServiceNow for the DPS teams and then expanded its use across the enterprise. The adoption of the system has been enthusiastic. HR has seen immediate benefits on staffing demands, supply chain management has been streamlined, software management simplified, and security made stronger.

Support team members can now track, act on, or reassign all their tasks from a single screen. “Service tickets can be seamlessly moved from one department to another. Information is now shared between departments, and people can think about things differently, work together to better to solve problems, and simplify processes,” Chuck says.

That visibility and collaboration leads to faster delivery times, cooperation, and better decision-making among management and clinicians, and that ultimately results in better patient care.

Online portals allow Novant Health to better manage its business and retain more employees
Online portals, such as HR Connect and a self-service portal, shortcut the process of requesting service or filing paperwork. That shortcut results in improved employee retention during a time of shortages.

The self-service portal also helps DPS. “The artificial intelligence built into the portal handles much of the triaging, reducing the workload by about 35%,” Chuck says.

But as the enterprise continues to grow, maintaining all those portals could be cumbersome. Using the Now Platform, Chuck’s team created a home page that unites the service areas in a single “DPS for Me” portal that’s much easier to maintain.

Inspired by ServiceNow, Novant Health continues to improve processes and patient care
This improved customer service has, as hoped, led to improved patient care.

There are more ServiceNow innovations ahead. The organization wants to grow the use of a virtual agent and deploy a secure mobile app that would allow clinicians to send supply chain requests, chat with the service desk, and place requests from the bedside.

The idea is to give clinicians a mobile app that’s easy to use, so they can keep conversations with support going while they take care of their patients. They can walk back out in the hall and pick up right where they left off.

Chuck predicts such an app would free up at least 170 extra hours each day for the system’s 1,500 physicians and 3,600 other medical staff providers to focus on patients.

Novant Health brings it all together for better clinical support
New hires who join Novant Health with experience working on performance and capability improvements at other organizations say they’ve never seen a platform or platforms respond to needs so quickly.

“I see a lot of organizations struggling with how they manage their platform. Or they do it with a heavy reliance on consultants and partners,” says Chuck. “I’m really proud of how we’ve reimagined the way we support our clinicians and manage the platform.”

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