“Having documentation that’s legible, that’s accurate, that is comprehensive and that’s easily retrievable were kind of all objectives we felt we could achieve with an EMR,” said Pam Collins, vice president, chief patient services officer for McCullough-Hyde.
Patients will have electronic profiles of their medical history. Health-care providers such as doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners still place orders for diets, medicine and tests by paper, which clerks put in the computer system, Collins said. Providers will enter orders directly online by August.
McCullough-Hyde participates in HealthBridge, a health information exchange for Greater Cincinnati. The exchange transmits summaries of patient records, transcribed reports and test results to authorized health care providers securely, said spokeswoman Trudi Matthews.
The recent push for electronic records stems from The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act enacted by President Barack Obama and Congress in 2009 that contains financial incentives for health systems and physician practices to make the move. E-records increase quality, safety and efficiency by collecting and measuring data and identifying gaps in care, said Matthews and McCullough-Hyde officials. For example, e-records can alert a health-care provider if a person with a chronic condition missed a flu shot, Matthews said.
McCullough-Hyde began the process of ditching paper forms by switching to a new computer vendor in 2010, Collins said. Employee training started in January. More than 40 “power user” volunteers took extra training to be expert resources.
Donna Baker, clinical informatics specialist, said 60 paper forms were reduced to 47 electronic ones. New equipment was purchased, including 53 Workstations on Wheels, or mobile computer workstations, extra desktop computers and barcode scanners, said Collins and Baker.
One of the biggest changes is closed-loop medication administration, which means hospital bracelets of admitted patients and medication have barcodes that are scanned to make sure patients gets the right medication at the right time, they said.
The biggest challenge is getting used to it.
McCullough-Hyde has 550 employees and 125 physicians on staff with a total 2,776 patient visits last year.
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