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E M R S
What did all that work gain for our hospital's surgical services department? Precious time. More time with patients, less time documenting, less time gathering performance data.
Our new EMR provides all the documentation prompts, procedure cards and actionable data we need. It also tracks our performance, manages our supply chain, interfaces with the billing department and facilitates patient throughput. Can you tell I'm enthusiastic about this system?
Recapping the journey
At times that enthusiasm flagged during the implementation process. I shared our hospital's journey to EMR implementation with Outpatient Surgery readers in a 6-part series last year. There were plenty of false starts along the way (tinyurl.com/9444vdk).
After evaluating 4 different systems using an 80-question matrix, we chose the EMR system that met all the identified organizational objectives for Community Hospital Surgical Services, with its 3 surgical facilities with a total of 8 ORs and a staff of 75. Our new system is Windows-based, replacing our DOS-based system, which was cumbersome to use and didn't provide support to clinical staff or management.
Signing the contract didn't mean smooth sailing all the time. Our golive date was pushed back more than once due to various issues, such as creating the interfacing necessary to work with our existing HIS throughout the hospital, including accounting and materials management. Quality patient care is the goal, but you can't provide that if you don't get paid for your services.
EMR project pays off
We went live on March 19, and we're still in what I call the clean-up
