Bear’s Den Innovation Program Awards Two Winning Ideas from Team Members

Hackensack Meridian Health employees’ innovations aimed to improve clinical side of operations

Innovations and ideas from team members across Hackensack Meridian Health will keep care locations, and patients, getting better, courtesy of the successful Bears Den Innovation Challenge: Decreasing Length of Stay.

Two winners were picked from among 70 high-level submissions from across the network. Following the presentation of six finalists to the executive team and board members on Nov. 28, it was determined the two projects would be further developed and piloted to determine the impact on decreasing patient length of stay.  

“Hackensack Meridian Health is always looking for innovative ways to improve - and make our patients better,” said Robert C. Garrett, FACHE, chief executive officer of Hackensack Meridian Health. “By looking to our incredible thousands of team members from across the state, we are finding ways to organically improve our entire operation, idea by idea, and insight by insight.’”

The Bear’s Den Innovation Program is a unique accelerator at Hackensack Meridian Health enlisting a panel of experts to evaluate inspirational health care ideas, inventions, and strategies from entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, health care partners, and HMH's own team members. The Bear's Den helps make great concepts a reality through strategic partnerships, funding, and other support, and its quarterly meetings are thought-provoking dialogues challenging the status quo to set better health care standards in New Jersey - and beyond. 

“The Bear’s Den program is an invaluable way to harness the expertise of our incredible team members,” said Ihor Sawczuk, M.D., FACS, Hackensack Meridian Health’s president of Academics, Research and Innovation, founding chair of the Hackensack Meridian Health Research Institute, and also associate dean of Clinical Integration and professor and chair emeritus of Urology at the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. 

The two winners are:

• A team of Hackensack University Medical Center and Ocean University Medical Center nurses proposes an interactive educational tool available through Mytonomy for all HMH hospitals to educate patients on a safe discharge process. All admitted patients and caregivers will have this tool available within 24-48 hours from admission to the hospital. It will cover the following categories for a safe discharge: medication safety, discharge instructions, social determinant of health needs (lack of medical or prescription coverage and timely follow-up). The timely introduction of this interactive educational tool will give patients and caregivers the time to address questions and concerns during their hospital stay and be ready for discharge.
• A nurse case manager at Hackensack University Medical Center proposes to streamline the  impact of multiple physician consults on the hospital Length of Stay.The idea is to implement a process change, remove discharge barriers and improve care transitions. The nurse proposes a patient-specific physician consult design that will interface with EPIC and the physician consultant notes. The physician consult design will contain elements that will provide necessary information to enhance communication, collaboration and coordination among the team members.The elements in the design will be located at the bottom of the physician consult and will contain: the current date of assessment, actively following the patient, cleared for discharge and signed off the case.

These ideas will be implemented as either network-wide changes, or in pilot programs to test their effectiveness.

“These ideas come from real clinical experience. We expect they will have a huge impact on our care locations in the future,” said Sandra Powell-Elliott, vice president and chief innovation and commercialization officer at Hackensack Meridian Health. 

Launched in 2017, the Bear’s Den features a panel of experts, including Hackensack Meridian Health CEO Garrett, leading physicians, key network executives, venture capitalists, patent attorneys, who gather regularly to vet proposals from entrepreneurs. The health network’s novel incubator has vetted many products and strategies to streamline care delivery, reduce infections, lower hospital readmissions and help patients partner in their care with physicians. The program has also invested in promising innovative companies.