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pdf - 81.4 KB - 09/18/08 - 152
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EmpowER CHARTS NEW COURSE - FUTURE HEALTHCARE
ACCOLADES FOR EMPOWER
Joint Commission
EmpowER ED received its first accolade in
2002, when the Joint Commission named it a
“success story and role model” in emergency
department (ED) automation in the publication
Accreditation Issues for emergency departments.
The Commission devoted an entire chapter
to a case study on how EmpowER ED automated
documentation in the emergency department at
a Chicago hospital with a case study explaining
that the hospital “launched a fully electronic medical
chart that has enabled the emergency department
to correct a number of deficiencies that frequently
create compliance problems with Joint
Commission standards.” The report went on to say
that the Joint Commission found EmpowER ED to
be “a complete medical record” whose comprehensive
approach to documentation enabled the
ED to be compliant with Joint Commission standards.
Since publication of the book, EmpowER ED
has acted as a paradigm for the future of computerizing
emergency departments everywhere.
KLAS Rankings
EmpowER ED has been consistently ranked in the
top three of EDIS vendors by KLAS Research in the
past several years, appearing in the mid-year and
year-end emergency department reports published
by KLAS.
2008 BEACON Award
Most recently, an EmpowER client, The Hospital of
Central Connecticut (HCC), was the honored recipient
of the 2008 BEACON Medical Technology
Award for its use of EmpowER ED in the emergency
department. BEACON’s selection committee was impressed with EmpowER ED’s “focus on quality,
improved turnaround times and patient satisfaction”
in the ED. HCC chief of emergency medicine
Jeff Finkelstein, M.D., was presented with the
award at the MEDi2008 Conference & Exhibition
in Hartford, Connecticut, on September 10, along
with EmpowER executives.
POINTS OF UNIQUENESS
EmpowER ED is built on a stable Microsoft platform
with the robust, clinically rich features that
only a comprehensive, best of breed solution can
offer. Mandatory risk management at the point of
care keeps patients safer, and automatic coding
means more billable charts for a more fiscally solvent
emergency department. And while capturing
patient information electronically is, of course,
the chief goal, there are many more attributes to
EmpowER that make it truly a comprehensive and
patient-focused solution.
Government Compliant
EmpowER ED mandates that clinicians document
all patient information that is required by
the government. Clinicians are encouraged to
make patient care and medical decision-making
reflect compliance requirements so governmentrequired
areas of documentation are clearly highlighted
within the application. These reminders
act as a training tool to remind clinicians what to
look for in every patient encounter the first time
around making them more efficient, thorough
caregivers for their patients.
Automatic Coding
Coding each EmpowER chart occurs automatically
and without any involvement by the user. Because every EmpowER chart contains complete
documentation of all patient information,
EmpowER ED’s Intellicode™ system can automate
coding on the back end for the physician
and nurse level of service, as well as pharmacy
and hospital supply charges. The physician level
of service is determined by the CMS point system
in an algorithm built into EmpowER, and the facility’s
coding is certified by AHIMA in coding tables
that can be edited to a specific hospital’s protocol.
This functionality eliminates coding expenses
and can even turn your coders into auditors rather
than data enterers. Intellicode™ is also a safeguard
against down-coded charts that jeopardize
the fiscal stability of the emergency department.
Even when quality care is provided, it is often not
fully billable due to documentation inadequacies,
resulting in the level of service—and therefore
reimbursement—being reduced, also known
as “down-coding” of the chart. EmpowER ED’s
Intellicode™ system ensures coding accuracy and
consistency in every patient chart.
Smart Technology
Ensuring a complete patient chart every time is
a given with EmpowER ED’s smart technology,
which scans all charts for missing documentation
related to risk management, coding, and government
compliance. When a nurse or doctor is ready
to discharge a patient and tries to close out the
chart, EmpowER ED automatically scans the chart
for any missing documentation. If information is
found to be missing, clinicians are prompted to
complete their documentation, and EmpowER
takes them directly back to the fields in question
so they can finish enter what is missing and
close the chart. Without this smart technology, hundreds of patient charts would remain unfinished,
non-billableand noncompliant with government
standards.
Robust Reporting
EmpowER ED can analyze virtually any chief complaint,
treatment or outcome across thousands
of records. ED statistics are instantly available,
including the patient log, number of admissions,
number of ambulance runs or transfers
and much more. Even ED staff performance can
be monitored by department managers. With all
data in structured fields and every patient intervention
automatically time stamped, there is no
data that cannot be converted into a thorough
report at the click of the mouse. Operational efficiency
and quality can be improved by showing
staff how efficient (or otherwise) they are on
the job. EmpowER ED offers the unprecedented
ability to analyze operational performance and
quality of care. Thousands of reports are immediately
available, eliminating analysis and reporting
expenses. EmpowER Systems can also create
custom reports for facilities with specific needs.
COMPREHENSIVE VS. MODULAR IMPLEMENTATION
EmpowER’s “All or Nothing” Implementation Method
EmpowER’s success can be directly attributed
to not only the robust, user-friendly platform of
the software itself, but the “all or nothing” implementation
approach that makes project management
efficient and finite. Going live with any EDIS
involves planning and hard work, but going live
with a comprehensive solution with a “big bang”
implementation is an easier project to manage,
and it is one that meets both the hospital’s and
vendor goals up front. A comprehensive solution
like EmpowER ED means less of a pain point for
clinicians than with a modular implementation.
Going live with a comprehensive solution in an
“all or nothing” deployment means less training,
less delays, and less disruption to processes and
workflow. Integration represents a significant
part of the implementation process, and integrating
to the hospital’s existing IT infrastructure on day one is another critical tenet of the EmpowER
philosophy. On day one, EmpowER goes live
with the core interfaces (ADT, Results and Order
Entry). This is crucial to the success of the project.
EmpowER can postpone integration with other
hospital systems, such as inpatient clinical documentation,
if the hospital prefers, but the emergency
department will go live with a “big bang”
implementation on day one. This delivers a better
experience for both caregivers and patients,
which is the primary goal.
The Pitfalls of Modular Implementations
At first glance, a modular approach may make it
seem that it would be easier on ED staff to phase
in different components of a so-called “integrated
solution.” In reality, it can be quite challenging
to integrate the various modules with
each other. This approach poses major problems
to project management and often points to
weaknesses of the software. Vendors of modular
solutions take the piecemeal route of automating
groups of users one at a time. For instance,
in a phased implementation, the more popular
modules might be deployed first, such as a
tracking system. Several months or years later,
the ED may go live with nursing notes, a prescription
writer and discharge instructions. Then, and
usually much later, the missing pieces of physician
documentation and order entry might be
launched. This means establishing a process for
documenting each time a module is deployed,
which changes drastically each time a new
module is introduced. The EmpowER philosophy
ensures a team approach and addresses the
emergency department as a whole entity, never
in phases that open the door to crises.
Another pitfall of implementing a modular
solution is that success of the project is often
masked by the phased approach itself. In fact, a
hospital may not know for many months whether
it can even implement all the modules purchased
from their vendor. Using the previous example,
a common tactic is to deploy the modules that
are most popular and easiest to implement. The
vendor would want to roll these out first because, being the most popular and widely used, they
are also the most advanced, and therefore less
likely to cause resistance from ED staff. These
vendors also realize that physician acceptance
is the most profound barrier to EDIS adoption,
so they may wish to wait on getting the physicians
on board.
Fortunately, most hospitals nowadays are
seeking comprehensive solutions, and hospital
decision-makers are savvy enough to realize
when a vendor does not have one. Sometimes,
however, the evaluation and sales processes can
muddy the waters, leaving the hospital unaware
that a vendor has effectively failed in deploying
comprehensive solutions. This is unfortunate, but
it is also changing for the better.
THE FUTURE
Comprehensive Solutions
The future truly is in comprehensive solutions.
This is what hospitals want: to automate the
entire emergency department—not parts of
it. Best of breed vendors can excel with comprehensive
solutions if they offer robust, userfriendly
solutions like EmpowER ED. Vendors
of modules labeled “integrated solutions” will
likely continue to fail for years, being far behind
the best of breeds in offering clinically rich products.
Yet they will remain formidable competition
to best of breed vendors, particularly at
hospitals that have bought many products from
them already, or hospitals that are alpha or beta
sites for that vendor.
Among the best of breeds, which offer superior
products because they focus on emergency
medicine, market consolidation will continue.
The weaker products—mostly modular— will not
make it. There is proven competition in this space,
but ultimately, the stronger products will prevail
because there is finally noteworthy and reliable
data available to hospital decision-makers.
They can now review the vendors and products in
which they are interested by purhcasing reports
by KLAS Research, for example. Now more than
ever, hospital decision-makers can look at industry
rankings and other data, information that was
no available five years ago. |
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