The Texas County Memorial Hospital board of trustees voted unanimously to approve electronic medical records in all of the hospital clinics at their monthly meeting last week.
The $300,000 technological investment will create a system that interfaces with the hospital EMR system already in place and create a single medical record for every TCMH clinic patient. TCMH officials planned to implement the technology in the hospital’s clinics in Cabool, Houston and Licking in 2008. However, with the recent recruiting of family practice/obstetrics physician, Dr. Charlie Rasmussen, TCMH agreed with Rasmussen to move toward having it in place in the TCMH Family Clinic in Houston in the near future.
Knowing that TCMH was beginning to look at electronic medical records for the clinics, the hospital’s employed physicians expressed interest in also expediting the technology to all of the hospital’s clinics.
Earlier this year, TCMH officials began looking at several different systems based on recommendations by Rasmussen. Hospital employed physicians, Dr. Steve Hawkins, Dr. Eugene Honeywell and Dr. Charles Mueller, also provided input regarding the systems that TCMH studied.
Centricity, a product by General Electric, is the system approved by the hospital’s board. The $300,000 price tag includes all the hardware and software for electronic medical records, patient account information, practice management and training for physicians and clinic staff.
“This system seems to be very user friendly,” said Linda Pamperien, chief financial officer at TCMH.
TCMH Chief Executive Officer Wes Murray, the hospital clinic managers and several physicians visited Kneibert Clinic in Poplar Bluff, where the 20-physician clinic has used the Centricity system since 2005. The Southeast Missouri clinic provided a day of “show and tell” for TCMH.
“This system has allowed Kneibert Clinic to gain 2,000 patients in the past year because they have that much more time at the clinic to care for patients rather than shuffle paper charts,” Murray said.
Murray described a “fax server” where faxes from outside the clinic are automatically sent to the patient’s electronic chart rather than coming in as a piece of paper on a fax machine and being scanned into the chart by someone at the clinic.
“Prescribing abilities are on the desktop,” Murray explained. “There’s no need for handwriting; the prescription information goes directly to the patient’s electronic chart.”
Perhaps the biggest bonus for patients and physicians is that TCMH clinic patients will have one electronic medical record that will be available at any TCMH clinic, eliminating the need to transfer charts within the TCMH system.
The system will incorporate the management of the clinic practice – the billing, scheduling and patient account information – into one system where the patient’s health information works in conjunction with the practice management needs. TCMH will be able to send patients reminders about routine exams and other things that will be accessible from the system database.
TCMH board members heard from Bill Bridges, emergency medical services director, about technology added in March for the EMS personnel. Bridges showed board members a “Toughbook,” a type of laptop computer manufactured by Panasonic, describing it as “the industry standard” for law enforcement, fire and other emergency personnel.
The TCMH EMS has three Toughbooks, one for each ambulance base. The Toughbooks are extremely durable and are used in the field for tracking vitals, procedures, etc. The computers are designed to be held and written on like tablet.
“The computers generate a narrative after each patient encounter,” Bridges said. “With the use of these Toughbooks, we are spending one-third less time on coding for patients which is a huge savings for us.”
Bridges presented data showing the number of ambulance runs by day, month and city; life threatening versus non-life threatening; and the various types of patients treated by the EMS personnel. Data was also presented showing that more charges for ambulance services are being billed and paid more quickly due to the greater ease of coding.
“The number of re-submits for ambulance claims has already dropped,” Murray noted.
Bridges thanked the TCMH board members and administration for approving the Toughbooks in the 2007 capital budget. Bridges noted that EMS personnel from larger hospitals want to look at the TCMH equipment when the TCMH ambulances transfer patients to hospitals in Springfield and Columbia.
“This technology has helped us do a better job,” Bridges said.
In other news, Murray reported facts and figures regarding the TCMH Medivan, the non-emergency transportation service that provides transportation for healthcare services in Texas County and the surrounding areas.
The two Medivans were purchased with funding from a grant through the Missouri Foundation for Health. The grant provided operational funds for three years, and May 1, 2007 marks the beginning of the third and final year of the grant.
“As of April 30, the end of the second year of the grant, we had transported 2,096 passengers on 1,999 one-way trips,” Murray said, noting that the average trip was 36 miles with Monday and Tuesday being the heaviest usage days.
“Forty percent of the Medivan passengers required wheelchair accommodations in the Medivan,” Murray reported, leading the hospital to believe that these patients might not easily have access to the healthcare services they need without having the wheelchair accessible Medivans available.
Pamperien reported a positive bottom line of $19,428 for the month of April, bringing the year to date balance to $170,915. Inpatient volume continues to be down at the hospital, but expenses have also been down.
The average daily census for the month of April was 13.
Present at the board meeting were Murray; Pamperien; Bridges; Doretta Todd-Willis, director of nursing; Joleen Senter Durham, director of public relations, and board members, Kirkwood; Janet Wiseman; Omanez Fockler and Larry Southern. Board member Mark Forbes was not present.
The next meeting of the TCMH board of trustees will be noon June 26 in the downstairs meeting room of the hospital.