Our Latest
Stage 6 Customer: Lake Regional Health System
The CIO and Director of Applications at Lake Regional discuss
how focusing on patient safety and getting their staff behind
MEDITECH's Advanced Clinicals led them on a path to Stage 6.
Six
years ago, Lake Regional Health System (Osage Beach, MO) embarked on
a patient safety initiative that established I.T. as a critical
component in its strategic plan. At that time, they weren't looking
for national recognition, just hoping to improve the quality of care
for their patients. Today, their Stage 6 status shows just how far
they've come in their patient safety and technology efforts.
We recently had the opportunity to talk with Lake Regional's CIO
Cindy Otradovec and Director of Applications Karen Phillips, to
learn more about their Stage 6 journey, and how MEDITECH's Advanced
Clinical solutions are helping the organization to move forward with
the challenge of demonstrating Meaningful Use.
MEDITECH: Congratulations on your Stage 6 achievement! How
would you say your patient safety efforts contributed to this
milestone, and what role does I.T. play?
Otradovec: Well, our I.T. department has certainly
taken on a much larger role since the start of our patient safety
initiative. In the past, many folks at our organization viewed I.T.
as an area of support only, not a driver for substantial reform.
Today, the health care industry is changing so rapidly. That being
said, the image and culture of I.T. is also evolving to meet these
new care requirements. Over the past six years, our I.T department
has become more transparent and has taken on an increasingly
proactive role in all business operation decisions at the hospital.
Our organization now embraces I.T. as a strategic partner in our
efforts to improve care. This transformation is both welcome and
necessary; without the support and availability of our I.T.
department, we would not be where we are today.
MEDITECH: Could you describe the level of executive and
physician support for your electronic medical record projects, and
what impact that had? Who was most instrumental?
Phillips: It's absolutely critical to have
executive and physician level support when embarking on any
electronic medical record project; one of the first and most
important steps was to educate our physicians and managers on the
benefits of a fully integrated electronic system and it required
executive level support to communicate that message to the
organization as a whole. In addition, we educated senior leadership
regarding resource requirements to successfully implement Advanced
Clinicals enterprise-wide. Once they understood our goals, they took
a careful look at our finances and made sure we had the right
resources in place to get the job done.
To help get physicians' support, we had to communicate the value of
entering orders on-line, as well as the many patient care benefits
that go along with an integrated, electronic system. We needed them
to see how easy it would be to manage their workloads, document, and
review patient results. Our Physician Advisory Council, super users,
and operational clinic experts were key in helping us get all the
physicians on board. In particular, our Physician Champion and ICU
Medical Director Dr. Andrew McKibben was one member of our team who
worked tirelessly during the implementation phases. He was an
invaluable resource and we were grateful to have a physician 'at our
fingertips,' whenever we needed his direction and expertise.
Today, four out of our six nursing units are LIVE with Computerized
Physician Order Entry (CPOE) and Physician Documentation. All of the
physicians who go to these floors are documenting and ordering
electronically. Our plan going forward is to get our OB physicians
and outpatient physicians LIVE in May. Once we do this, 100% of our
physicians will be using the MEDITECH system to electronically
manage their patients and document care.
MEDITECH:
What has your experience working with MEDITECH been like over the
past year or so, as you continued to build on your Advanced
Clinicals? Have you attended any of our workshops or regional
events?
Otradovec: We've had a great partnership with
MEDITECH ever since we became a customer in 1994. Our experience has
always been top-rate and MEDITECH has consistently looked out for
our best interests. Our sales reps have been particularly attentive
and helpful to us when planning each step of the implementation
process. They've always done more for us than just the typical
selling of products.
MEDITECH's workshops have provided some fantastic educational and
networking opportunities for our senior leadership. The main
speakers are great, but there is also tremendous value in the
peer-to-peer discussions that happen outside the auditorium. After
having attended CIO Workshops in the past, I am looking forward to
attending this year's event in a few weeks.
MEDITECH: From an interdisciplinary perspective, how has
achieving Stage 6 helped to improve care at Lake Regional? Have you
received any feedback from providers across the various hospital
disciplines?
Phillips: The Stage 6 journey has been an
opportunity for us to standardize processes, streamline patient
care, and prevent medication errors across the enterprise. It's
helped us to clean up and improve processes that needed to be
addressed for years. For example, since implementing MEDITECH's
Bedside Medication Verification (BMV) and electronic Medication
Administration Record (eMAR) solutions, our nurses' comfort with
medication administration has increased significantly. They feel
more confident knowing the system will alert them if a medication
dose is too high or if they have scanned the incorrect patient.
Also, nurse accountability coupled with the MEDITECH system has
drastically decreased our error rates. The number of medication
near-misses (discontinued or not administered) has gone down from
2,234 in March 2009, to an all-time low of 252 in March 2010. In
addition, we're seeing 95% of all medications and patient wristbands
being scanned into the system. We've been able to ensure patient
safety by utilizing MEDITECH's technology solutions, and we are
thrilled with the results.
Just like our nurses, our inhouse physicians have also been very
satisfied with the system. They are particularly pleased with the
level of detail and accessibility of patient information within
MEDITECH's ED documentation solution. And because we have one of the
busiest EDs in the state, they appreciate having all clinical data
from every discipline available immediately at the point-of-care.
MEDITECH: How has achieving Stage 6 helped to prepare Lake
Regional for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA)?
Otradovec: Since the criteria for Stage 6 and ARRA
legislation are very similar, Stage 6 has really served us well in
documenting what we have already accomplished, and what we need to
accomplish next in order to demonstrate Meaningful Use and receive
maximum reimbursement. Right now, we feel we are well-positioned to
achieve the 2011 and 2013 ARRA requirements. After we go LIVE with
5.6 in March 2011, our plan is go completely paperless. At that
point, we will have our sights set on achieving Stage 7, because
many of these requirements can be achieved with MEDITECH's 5.6
release.
In order to do what's best for our patients, our plan is to keep
moving ahead and incorporating new technology into our hospital-wide
processes, so we can continue on the path to providing safe, quality
care. Even though we are limiting our current projects as we focus
on ARRA, we still have a few things in the works, including a
patient portal for clinics, speech recognition software for our
radiologists, and electronic dashboards through Medisolv.
Health care today is challenging but equally rewarding at the same
time. Thanks to the dedication of our staff and a solid MEDITECH
system, we're well on our way to reaching our full potential and
providing unsurpassed care throughout the Lake of the Ozarks region.