Villa Healthcare Uses Technology to Make People Better: Wins Bronze Award for 2019 McKnight's Excellence in Technology Awards

SKOKIE, Ill., Oct. 15, 2019 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- Villa Healthcare is honored to receive a bronze award for 2019 McKnight's Excellence in Technology Awards for its partnership with Direct Supply® TELS® (http://www.tels.net). On October 10, McKnight's announced the bronze award win to "Villa Healthcare, of Skokie, IL, for incorporating Direct Supply TELS for safety support in its 34 skilled nursing facilities. TELS uses information from maintenance industry experts and state surveyors to create a library of life safety tasks and materials tailored toward each building's specific needs. Among its capabilities: It assists with unscheduled maintenance tasks such as work order creation for leaky faucets, and also helps with regular maintenance tasks such as water temperature checks and fire drills."

Villa partnered with Direct Supply TELS for safety support of its affiliated skilled nursing facilities to promote continued maintenance of facility equipment in the interest of guest and employee safety. TELS utilizes information from maintenance industry experts and state surveyors to create a library of Life Safety tasks and materials that are then tailored towards each building's specific needs.

TELS assists with unscheduled maintenance tasks such as work order creation for leaky faucets or a burned out lightbulb. TELS also helps with regular maintenance needs such as water temperature checks, fire drills and generator testing, ensuring they are scheduled on a regular interval, with reminders, and the information is stored over time.

The TELS Site Visit Tool has a Mock Survey feature that allows each facility to better prepare for state survey. Using this technology has led to not only increased positive results in state surveys, but in the bigger picture, has increased resident and staff safety. TELS maintains compliance with OSHA standards. TELS also provides content and scheduling assistance for monthly safety meetings.

TELS can be customized to the safety needs of each building, allowing each Villa center, regardless of size, age, or stage of renovation to tailor TELS monitoring features to its unique characteristics. TELS increases accountability, allowing facility leadership and maintenance to leverage the real-time Interactive Reporting dashboard and associated reports to monitor building-level performance for work orders and outstanding maintenance tasks.

Kevin Baune, Vice President of Plant Operations at Villa Healthcare states, "Working with TELS has allowed me to provide a platform to support each of our Maintenance Directors and Life Safety Professionals. I feel confident that my team has the tools to do regular maintenance, with reminders, as well as handle the day-to-day issues that arise."

Villa Healthcare is proud of its technology partners and also had submissions with Cortex, Relias, Villa Connect and Wound Rounds.

    --  Cortex: Villa's patient satisfaction monitoring/intelligence program was
        not working. While there was a vendor partnership, the amount of
        feedback received was minimal in relation to the number of patients
        served in each center and reporting capabilities were limited. Villa
        solicited multiple vendors for proposals and selected Cortex, a patient
        experience management company that employs registered nurses to conduct
        post-discharge, follow-up phone calls. Cortex is focused on health-care
        clients and is able to tailor their patient satisfaction questions to
        both health-care related items, as well as patient experience feedback.
    --  Relias: Villa partners with an online learning management system,
        Relias, to provide consistent training in all 34 skilled nursing
        facilities. Additionally, with the potential for organizational growth,
        a reliable way to deliver process and compliance training with new
        acquisitions was needed. While the employees in each Villa center and
        the Skokie Support Center saw many benefits of using the Relias system,
        Villa has gained the most traction with our new hire training process,
        annual training process and our approach to promote wellness in place to
        aid in reducing hospital readmissions, minimizing the potential impact
        of transfer trauma, and ultimately, making our guests better.
    --  Villa Connect: Villa created the mobile app Villa Connect with the goal
        of increasing communications to hard-to-reach desk-less workers on
        varying shifts. Villa noticed a challenge in staff not having regular
        access to emails and other communications when working with patients, as
        well as a delay in how critical information can be slow moving in an
        organization. Villa Connect succeeds in connecting its leadership team
        to the facility teams they support, which has been a long-term goal of
        the organization. Villa partnered with Social Chorus to create Villa
        Connect which, despite being advanced technology, was delivered in an
        easy-to-use format that is accessible via both the Apple App Store and
        Google Play.
    --  WoundRounds: Skin integrity is an issue for all nursing facilities and a
        costly one, both in treatment costs and potential negative outcomes for
        the resident. Villa sought a consistent way to track and heal wounds,
        but also for all clinical staff to have information and communication
        about wounds within the facility. WoundRounds offers a robust program
        with a mobile application, photo ability, tracking over-time, and the
        ability to integrate Villa's recommended skin integrity formulary to
        promote healing. Doctors, nurses, and other clinical care providers can
        access a daily view of all wounds in the facility, making it a one-stop
        shop for wound treatment.

We're Villa, and we make people better. Of course, we're focused on quality care and good outcomes. But we're here to do so much more. Villa's leadership has a vision of rising above the status quo--of never settling, and of shattering the old image of this industry. We've always wanted to be a part of something greater, and we're making that a reality. Our commitment to our people, our environment and clinical programs will allow us to fulfill our mission of making people better. For more information, please visit http://www.VillaHC.com.

SOURCE Villa Healthcare