Empower Systems™ Partner MetroSouth Medical Center Receives Distinction from HealthGrades 2012 Emergency Medicine in American Hospitals Report.

Empower Systems™ is pleased to congratulate client partner MetroSouth Medical Center on their recent inclusion in the highly-respected HealthGrades annual Emergency Medicine report. This achievement underscores the consistent dedication by MSMC administrators and clinicians to providing citizens of the Blue Island, IL community with exceptional medical care.

The long-standing professional partnership between Empower Systems™ and MetroSouth Medical Center has produced tangible results in the Emergency Department, and hospital-wide. In addition to providing advanced medical care, MSMC was one of the first 40 hospitals in the country to successfully attest for CMS Stimulus Incentives as part of the ARRA/HITECH Act of 2010. This milestone was supported by Empower’s ONC Certified comprehensive Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology. With over $8 Million in incentives projected over 4 years, MSMC is clearly an industry leader on many levels.

Empower Systems™ president, Seth Guterman, MD FACEP noted “MetroSouth Medical Center consistently achieves success both clinically and financially due to their ongoing commitment in the best technology available. Quality of care and patient satisfaction continue to set them apart from most medical centers, not just in the Midwest, but across the country.”

Serving its community since 1905, MSMC, a 410-bed facility, is one of a growing number of U.S. hospitals to embrace technology in order to deliver more expedient patient care. As a regional innovator, MSMC continues to demonstrate successful strategies that other hospitals seek to emulate. Empower Systems™ provides ONC Certified comprehensive Electronic Health Record (HER) and advanced Core Hospital Information System (HIS) solutions for facilities of any size. Development is led by clinical and IT experts in their field, which ensures true user-friendliness, 100% user acceptance, and MUAM compliance beginning on day one.

ONC Certified Comprehensive EHR vendor Empower Systems™ recently announced successful Surescripts® certification of their e-Prescribing solution, which functions in tandem with their ONC Certified comprehensive Inpatient, Ambulatory, and Emergency Department applications.

ONC Certified Comprehensive EHR vendor Empower Systems™ recently announced successful Surescripts® certification of their e-Prescribing solution, which functions in tandem with their ONC Certified comprehensive Inpatient, Ambulatory, and Emergency Department applications. Clients will be able to immediately benefit from the enhanced medication prescription interactivity and directly meet relevant Meaningful Use guidelines for CMS Stimulus Payment qualification.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) mandates that certified EHR vendors possess e-Prescribing technology as part of Meaningful Use compliance. The technical goal of e-Prescribing is to electronically send ‘an accurate, error-free and understandable prescription directly to a pharmacy from the point-of-care.’ CMS believes this is an key element to not only extend EHR technical capabilities, but more importantly to enhance quality of patient care.

Empower Systems™ offers computer documentation solutions built by clinicians, for clinicians. From product development to sales, Empower is led by practicing clinicians. They feel this bridges a crucial gap in the EHR selection and implementation process, for while Information Technology professionals retain a central role in clinical documentation design and support, ARRA/HITECH mandates have necessitated increased involvement by physicians and nurses in all phases of Electronic Health Record initiatives. Empower Systems™ President, Seth Guterman, MD FACEP, commented that “the addition of e-Prescribing functionality to the Inpatient, Ambulatory, ED, and HIS product suite represents an important new layer in Empower’s One Patient, One Chart, One Database philosophy.”

Comprehensive Hospital Information System Technology offers entire facilities new options in Core HIS functionality.

Clinically-led EHR vendor Empower Systems™ has announced a major expansion of their product suite to include comprehensive Hospital Information System (HIS) technology with the release of Empower HIS™. As numerous EHR-related start-ups have entered the potentially lucrative Healthcare IT market with limited success, established vendors such as Empower Systems™ continue to expand their client base by delivering proven HIT technology to hospitals across the country.

The HIS marketplace has been dominated by publicly traded corporations and their Healthcare IT subsidiaries, but because clinical documentation (EHR) and hospital system (HIS) environments are so complex, delivering usable and scalable solutions of cutting edge technology does not prove to be a simple task. Enterprise solutions frequently maintain antiquated system architecture and cumbersome user interfaces, which can inhibit efficiency and limit true return on investment. In this climate of Federal Healthcare Incentives, HIT products are now held to much higher standards for end users and administrators.

Empower HIS™ is built upon cutting-edge system architecture and offers both local and cloud-based implementation options. The feature-rich technologies include Lab Information System, Radiology Information System, Pharmacy Management, Insurance & Contract Management, Hospital Administration System, Equipment Maintenance System, Patient Management System, Financial Account & Billing, Resource Management, Clinical Records Management, Housekeeping & Laundry Management, Unit Management, and more.

Because this is such a transitional time in the Healthcare IT environment, most hospitals are reassessing their existing clinical documentation systems and hospital information systems in an effort to maximize productivity and ROI. Empower Systems™ clients are able to benefit from seamlessly connected systems from the Emergency Department, Inpatient units, Physician offices, and now the HIS backbone on which all systems reside. As the healthcare landscape is increasingly shaped by the federal government’s ambitious initiatives and industry reform, Empower Systems™ seeks to leverage visionary technology based upon deep clinical knowledge and assist its clients in making the correct strategic decisions for the future.

Exciting Precedent Set for Empower ED Emergency Departments.

As recently announced, a Tennessee-based Emergency Department became the first hospital in the nation to utilize an EDIS (Emergency Department Information System) to successfully qualify for CMS stimulus payments. Under the guidelines of the HITECH Act, hospitals have the option of attesting for Meaningful Use with clinical data from an EDIS, as long as it is Certified as a Comprehensive EHR. This means Emergency Departments can now successfully attest for Stage 1 of Meaningful Use without their entire Inpatient facility utilizing an ONC Certified Comprehensive EHR.

Because Empower SystemsTM is an ONC Certified Complete EHR, the clear benefit of this for empowerEDTM partners is the ability to receive our most advanced EDIS product and attest for $100K-$1 Million or more in CMS stimulus payments, based upon patient volume (“All ED Visits” method of measurement). As previously announced, an empowerEDTM facility in the Chicago Metro Area secured $8 Million in CMS payments over 4 years, with $2.25 Million received only 6 weeks after attestation. They generated MUAM reporting data based on 90 days usage of Empower’s ONC Certified EHR; this goal is attainable by virtually all Empower client partners.

We are confident that the comparatively low cost to implement our ONC Certified empowerEDTM product with its advanced functionality (Documentation + Reporting) and the stimulus revenue potential makes this an opportune time to make your Emergency Department an event greater revenue center for your facility.

If you would like your hospital to complete the 1st year of Attestation and receive CMS Stimulus Incentives using only ED data, contact us directly to work through the details and be provided with a strategy specific to your Emergency Department.

ONC Certified EHR vendor Empower Systems™ announced the pending release of the highly anticipated Bedside Scanning application for the iPhone and iPod from its Clinical Mobility™ division.

This cutting-edge functionality will be available as a proprietary app for the Apple iPhone/iPod in early in 2012. Hospital staff will be able to utilize time-saving bedside scanning for Patient Identification, Bar Coding, and Tracking of Patients, Staff, and Equipment.

Fast-paced Emergency Departments and complex Inpatient units require simple, intuitive technological solutions to maintain workflow, improve efficiency, and enhance patient care. From an operational perspective, hospitals will directly benefit from reduced time required to process patient information, share patient information, and track both personnel and equipment throughout facilities. Add to these benefits the structured data fields and seamless integration to the Empower Systems™ EHR, and it becomes clear that clinical and administrative leadership can truly leverage valuable data mining capabilities.

For more information on Empower Systems™ ONC Certified EHR technology and to track the official release date of the Empower Bedside Scanning app, please visit us at: www.empower.md

It is common knowledge that most hospitals already capture and drop Operational Charges related to the day-to-day business of running a facility. These hospital charges are automatically captured through the Registration, Coding, and Billing modules, as well as the software systems that capture and drop charges for Laboratory, Radiology, Pharmacy, Materials & Supplies Services.

Unfortunately, these existing systems cannot capture the Millions of Dollars lost due to insufficient or incomplete clinical documentation by doctors and nurses. Clinical documentation that leads or impacts a hospital’s clinical charges and reimbursement (i.e. Medical Necessity, Reason for Admission, etc.) generated by doctors and nurses has been difficult to automate and maximize…until now.

Empower Systems™ announced its ONC Certified Comprehensive EHR delivers an automated, built-in Clinical Revenue Enhancement Module to help capture this lost revenue. The EHR overlays ANY existing Core HIS (Registration, Coding, Billing) and enables hospitals to both maximize revenue enhancement and justify medical care provided. This is due to Empower’s intuitive workflow design, which guides doctors and nurse to provide the appropriate supporting documentation for clinical care given to patients.

Empower’s Clinical Revenue Enhancement Module EHR Encompasses:

1. HIGHLY-SPECIFIC and TARGETED Diagnosis documentation required by the physician. This alone increases hospital reimbursement by millions of dollars for both small and large hospitals.
2. Required & Appropriate documentation of Medical Necessity for Diagnostic Tests.
3. Required & Appropriate documentation of Reason for Admission (Observation & Full Admission).
4. Automatic Calculation and Charge Capture of IV Infusion Medicine and/or Hydration, with required Start/Stop Times for nursing administration of these medications.
5. Automated Charge Capture of Nursing and Physician Procedures.
6. Auto-Populating of Hospital Coding and Billing Software (i.e. 3M, etc.) with ICD-9, CPT, and E&M codes.
7. Auto-Calculation of the DRG and E&M Codes using hospital’s existing coding software.

Empower Systems™ feels it has ‘changed the game’ with 21st Century Technology for Advanced Hospital Billing through proprietary logic and software programming. Hospital CFOs are encouraged to content Empower directly to learn how to maximize existing revenue potential from clinical documentation while retaining existing Core HIS (Meditech, McKesson, Cerner, CPSI, HMS, etc.)

Rideout Memorial Hospital began the task of implementing an emergency department information system (EDIS) in 2008. “Hospital Administration knew implementation of Electronic Medical Records would be inevitable and we wanted to get ahead of the curve,” recalls Rudy Zaragoza, MD, ED Medical Director at Rideout.

As Rideout’s administration began looking for systems that would be appropriate for hospital-wide use, the ED staff was aware of problems with some other electronic medical records (EMR) and worked with hospital administration to find a system that was specifically designed for the ED.

The ED staff started by focusing on the selection process, both formally and informally. “We talked with the CEP America Regional Director, as well as with other EDs that had implemented EDIS,” reports Dr. Zaragoza. “We really worked to identify what we didn’t want in an EDIS.” After reviewing and selecting their top three candidates, the ED chose EmPower for its focus on the physician interface as well as its promised ROI.

As the selection shifted to implementation, Rideout’s ED created a multi-disciplinary implementation committee to break down the day-to-day processes on paper and identify how the EDIS would improve patient flow in the department. Utilizing EmPower technical resources and CEP America’s Practice Management Consultants, the ED chose to avoid a tiered-implementation and instead had the entire ED up-and-running on the new EDIS at the same time, with 100% physician and nurse computerized documentation, full computerized physician order entry (CPOE), and complete integration with other hospital systems, such as radiology and the lab.

Beginning to end, the entire process took Rideout Memorial Hospital fourteen months. Since going live with EmPower at the end of 2009, they have seen extraordinary results. The ED now has improved access to data, which has resulted in improved operations and an increase in physician productivity. Time-to-provider (TTP) also dropped from an hour to 27 minutes and the Left Without Being Seen (LWBS) rate fell to 1.8%.
“Our success is really because the hospital administration allowed the ED to make the selection,” emphasized Dr. Zaragoza. “For anyone looking to implement an EDIS, it is important to get the department involved and choose a user- friendly system. Poor selection can cripple the ED, as well as hinder retention and recruiting.”

Washington County Regional Medical Center of Sandersville, GA has advanced the technological state of its facility yet again with the installation of Empower Inpatient+Ambulatory™, the Empower Systems™ ONC Certified Complete EHR Built By Clinicians, For Clinicians.

Serving the region since 1960, Washington County Regional Medical Center, is a forward-minded facility offering an array of quality medical services including Emergency Care, Obstetrics, Inpatient/Outpatient Surgery, Intensive Care, Cardiac Rehabilitation, Pediatrics, Respiratory Therapy, and more. Additionally, WCRMC provides a unique Wellness Works facility, which assists patients in reaching a variety of preventative medicine goals through exercise and dietary guidance. Combine this with Extended Care and extensive Outpatient Services, and it is clear that WCRMC will continue to play a vital role in the community for many years, and generations, to come.

Dr. Seth Guterman, President of Empower Systems notes, “Washington County Regional Medical Center understands that for ONC Certified EHR technology to successfully translate to Meaningful Use compliance, it must be user friendly. Because Empower Systems is built by clinicians, for clinicians, we deliver 100% user acceptance and ensure our clients achieve not just Meaningful Use thresholds, but truly leverage CMS stimulus incentives. WCRMC is already on their way to successful Meaningful Use compliance, CMS stimulus revenue, and benefiting from Empower’s industry-leading Return on Investment.”

Empower Systems™ is the industry-leading software firm known for ONC Certified comprehensive EHR solutions Built By Doctors, For Doctors. The user-friendly, comprehensive, Best of Breed solutions have a proven track record of interfacing with ANY Core HIS, documenting 100% of a patient’s clinical information, and bringing both Hospitals and Doctors’ office environments paperless in record time.

Based on successful implementation strategy and training, Virginia Hospital Center of Arlington, Virginia, has further advanced the technological state of its facility with the installation of empowerED™, the Emergency Department product of Empower Systems™ ONC Certified Comprehensive EHR Built By Clinicians, For Clinicians.

Serving the Washington metropolitan area for over 60 years, Virginia Hospital Center, is a state-of-the art facility. Since its transformation in 2004, VHC has expanded its vital role in the community, delivering the best patient care and advanced medical procedures available. Its Centers of Excellence serve as true models of excellence in providing specialized services in Cardiology, Cardiovascular Surgery, Oncology, Neuroscience, Urology, Women & Infant Health, and more. Its long-term relationship with Georgetown University’s School of Medicine further expands the importance of this teaching hospital center.

Dr. Seth Guterman, President of Empower Systems™ recently commented that, “Virginia Hospital Center understands that for ONC Certified EHR technology to successfully translate to Meaningful Use compliance, it must be user friendly. Because Empower Systems is built by clinicians, for clinicians, we deliver 100% user acceptance and ensure our clients achieve not just Meaningful Use thresholds, but truly leverage CMS stimulus incentives. VHC is now ready to actively pursue compliance, Meaningful Use, and the industry-leading ROI offered by Empower Systems™ products.”

Following months of intensive planning and training, Peach Regional Medical Center (PRMC) of Fort Valley, Georgia enhanced their high quality of patient care even further with the expansion of Empower Systems Electronic Health Record technology from the Emergency Department into all Inpatient and Ambulatory Surgery units on June 6, 2011.

Empower Inpatient+Ambulatory™ is an ONC Certified Complete Electronic Health Record that will enable PRMC nurses and physicians to access the comprehensive, user-friendly clinical documentation technology of Empower Systems™ throughout the entire hospital and in the PRMC-owned physician office.

“Our commitment to delivering the highest qualify medical care to our community prompted the decision to expand Empower’s clinical documentation into all hospital departments,” noted Nancy Peed, CEO of Peach Regional Medical Center. “We are confident this will elevate patient care and be an exciting tool for our entire clinical team.”

Dr. Seth Guterman, CEO of Empower Systems™, echoes this sentiment. “We truly value partners such as Peach Regional. It is through our flourishing relationship that we can help them deliver the highest quality medical care via advanced clinical documentation and concise communication, which will benefit the patients they serve.”

The successful partnership of Empower Systems™ and PRMC began in 2007 with the installation of empowerED™, the JCAHO-acclaimed Emergency Department Information System, and continues its evolution into the new decade. Serving the community since 1953, Peach Regional has always been committed to delivering the highest quality, most expedient, patient care available. As a regional innovator, PRMC continues to lead by example; their decision to be proactive with ARRA/HITECH healthcare IT mandates underscores this fact. They have established themselves among the leading patient-focused medical centers in the US and will continue playing a vital role in the region. Empower Systems™ is proud of the expanded partnership and looks forward to helping Peach Regional pursue its ongoing commitment to patients, medical professionals, and the community at large.