Document Management

Enjoying the fruits of document management

Patient safety, quality and effi ciency can all improve with better document management practices. By Sreekant Gotti

I

n a world where healthcare providers must respond rapidly to change, California’s Prime Healthcare Services moves quicker than most. Ten hospital

thcare providers must hange, California’s

acquisitions in the last few years will have that effect, as will ory

the host of other regulatory, gy

economic and technology -

demands currently con- verging on the organization and others like it.

Prime Healthcare has found that, despite its size – 14 hospitals com- prising 2,400 beds and 9,000 employees – and recent acquisitions, a strong healthcare IT base has kept it moving ahead and effective- ly overcoming industry hurdles. Of these 14 hospitals, 12 hos- pitals are under Prime Healthcare Services and two hospitals are underls are under Foundation.

g pt ve- dles. 2 hos- ealthcare Prime Healthcare Services F Document management is one area that Prime

Healthcare has successfully navigated on a system-wide scale. With hundreds of paper forms in use, leadership identifi ed numerous potential pitfalls associated with a manual process. In fact, the organization’s rapid expansion has served to highlight the need for a cohesive solution for document management delivered throughout the entire network.

Finding the right partner While the organization was beginning to reap the ben-

efi ts of automation via its integrated clinical and fi nancial technologies, including electronic health records (EHRs) and a health information system (HIS), Prime Health- care facilities were still heavily dependent on paper. The health system was relying upon hard copies of admissions,

20 October 2011

ervices moves en hospital w years will

clinical and operation

clinical and operations forms that needed to be converted to electro

problems in both patient safety and fi nanc

management system.

converted to electronic format. Knowing that manually com

nances, IT leadership searched for

manually completed forms and stacks of preprint

of preprinted papers could lead to problem

for a full-featured document m

Prime Healthcare had

specifi c demands of its so- lution. For one, it needed a technology that could scale to its large, multi- hospital system to en- sure it had a consistent technology at all facilities, which would streamline deployment and allow the seamless fl ow of data between hospitals. The organization also needed a system that would en- able it to quickly update forms. Even when minor changes were required, such as an update to a HIPAA authorization form that a patient receives upon check-in, staff needed to discard all the old, preprinted documents and generate a new batch of forms, adding expense and wasting employees’ time. Prime needed to eliminate this misuse of resources and ensure accurate information across its facilities. After searching for a document management solution,

d sea hosp needed able it to q when minor c as an update to a H

Prime Healthcare came across FormFast’s logic-based, on-demand workfl ow and print management system for automating medical records, revenue cycle and patient registration documentation processes. This solution could be seamlessly integrated with other healthcare IT applica- tions, such as the HIS and EHR systems already in use at Prime Healthcare’s hospitals.

Implementing the program Prime Healthcare needed implementation to progress

HEALTH MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY

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