Far-Reaching Patient Care Initiative Leads Hays Medical Center to Stage 6
Thrilled to have achieved Stage 6 Electronic Medical Record adoption recognition from HIMSS Analytics, the folks at Hays Medical Center (Hays, KS) maintain they never actually "set out" to become a Stage 6 recipient. Rather, when the rural 203-bed health care facility became a MEDITECH customer back in 2003, it embarked on an ongoing journey to ensure quality patient care and in the process, qualified for the prestigious recognition.
"Receiving Stage 6 Electronic Medical Record adoption recognition from HIMSS Analytics is truly a testament to the hard work of everyone involved at our organization," says Bill Overbey, CIO and CFO at Hays Medical Center. "Our dedicated physicians, strong administrative leadership, and our reliable MEDITECH solutions have allowed us to successfully reach our patient care goals."
Creating Quality Care with the Right Support and Leadership
Hays' continued persistence and extensive long-term efforts have paid off and allowed the health care organization to achieve quite a few renowned distinctions over the years, including the recent Stage 6 recognition. "Patient quality has always been the main driver for us in all of our initiatives hospital-wide," says Overbey explaining how his organization first came to choose MEDITECH seven years ago. "Since better information leads to better care for patients, and because we wanted to make the documentation process easier for physicians, we saw MEDITECH's integrated products as the solution we needed."
With the right amount of administrative support and the commitment of CEO, John Jeter, MD, Overbey knew Hays could attain an even higher level of electronic medical record adoption going forward. "In order to successfully achieve Stage 6, it is essential to have executives and physicians work together," says Overbey. "Dr. Jeter has been our MEDITECH physician champion for years and because he and the rest of our administrative leaders have consistently supported our patient safety and electronic initiatives, we continue to move ahead and be successful."
Besides dedicated leadership, MEDITECH's integrated system has helped Hays to reach Stage 6 by providing an additional level of quality care and enhanced patient safety. "By moving to an electronic integrated system, we've been able to gain huge improvements in care delivery, operational efficiency, reductions in medication errors, and improve our diagnostic reporting capabilities," says Scott Rohleder, I.T. director at Hays Medical Center. "We've also been able to expand our service line offerings, consult with specialities outside our immediate area, and accommodate our younger physicians who prefer to dictate through an electronic system. It's been a win-win for all."
Relying on MEDITECH's Integrated Solutions to Better Administer Care
MEDITECH's solutions are providing clinicians the patient information they need, when they need it. "Since physicians can access the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) remotely and review a patient's chart anytime or anywhere, they can make clinical decisions more quickly and efficiently and plan accordingly," says Rohleder. "Physicians are no longer required to rely on nurses to get information for a patient; they can immediately see x-ray and radiology report results through the system."
Furthermore, since Hays has physician and ambulatory clinics outside the main health care facility, the organization has been using the Medical and Practice Management (MPM) solution to keep all locations connected electronically. "MPM has given our providers seamless access to patient data in the EMR," says Rohleder. "All pertinent clinical data, whether it be from the inpatient or outpatient world, is in one centralized area for easy access and viewing."
By using MEDITECH's integrated solutions, Hays is well on their way to achieving a fully paperless environment. And while HIMSS Analytics has stated many hospitals striving to achieve Stage 6 get stuck at Stage 5 (the closed loop medication process), Hays has been able to overcome this hurdle.
"MEDITECH's Bedside Medication Verification (BMV) solution is what helped us get from Stage 5 to Stage 6," explains
Rohleder. "During the medication administration process, our nurses use BMV to confirm patient identity and medication information against data readily available via the electronic Medication Administration Record (eMAR), thereby ensuring patient safety."
Rohleder notes that the nurses at Hays rely heavily on the BMV and eMAR solutions to help prevent medication errors and correctly and safely administer the five rights to each patient. However, Rohleder explains this was not always the case and some nurses were skeptical of the solution early on.
"A short time after we first went LIVE with the BMV solution in our ICU, some nurses thought the system was scanning incorrectly and providing faulty alerts and warnings on certain medications because they seemed to be averting more errors than expected," says
Rohleder. "After we checked into the issue, it turned out the system was indeed scanning correctly and providing that extra level of medication safety and minimizing potential adverse reactions and risks to our patients." Now those nurses are firm believers in MEDITECH's BMV solution.
Finally, to tie all MEDITECH and third party information together for reporting, the folks at Hays have been relying on MEDITECH's integrated Data Repository (DR) solution. Hays has made great strides with
reporting across the care
setting, and is using DR to support clinical and financial guidance.
"By using DR, we've been able to use reports to enhance our patient care and data-driven decisions in real-time," says Rohleder. "I think it's safe to say we qualified for Stage 6 because of DR and what it continues to give our organization in terms of quality measuring and reporting."
Taking Patient Care to the Next Level
As part of their upcoming efforts, Hays has a few more I.T. projects and other initiatives in the works. "We plan to complete our MEDITECH
Oncology early adopter implementation, roll out template-driven documentation in our physician offices, and implement MEDITECH's Scanning and Archiving solution very soon," says Overbey. "As part of our effort to get rid of silos and provide our physicians with all pertinent clinical information, we are also implementing Cardiac PACS."
The staff at Hays are proud of what they've achieved in terms of patient care, but of course, it's an ongoing process. "Improving the quality of patient care will always remain a priority for our organization and we are thrilled with our progress and the recognition we've received," says Overbey. "MEDITECH continues to play a key role in our evolution as we move forward and take our care to the next level."
About Hays Medical Center
Hays Medical Center (Hays, KS), a MEDITECH Client/Server customer since 2003, is a private, not-for-profit hospital. The 203-bed facility serves a population of about 130,000 citizens in northwestern Kansas and is located on a spacious campus in northeast Hays. Hays Medical Center is well known and respected for its cancer prevention and treatment programs at the Dreiling/Schmidt Cancer Center and its cardiology services delivered via the DeBakey Heart Institute.
The health care facility also provides medical, surgical, pediatric, neonatal, cardiac, joint, eye, diagnostic imaging, and inpatient rehabilitation programs. Hays Medical Center has been awarded numerous honors for its outstanding patient care, satisfaction, and telemedicine programs.
Hays Medical Center recently received Stage 6 Electronic Medical Record adoption recognition from HIMSS Analytics. Hays also ranked #26 out of 100 in this year's "Modern Healthcare" award for "Best Places to Work in Health Care." This is the second consecutive year Hays has been recognized with
this award.