Computer Upgrades Improve Patient Care

In February the Great River Medical Center in Blytheville launched the first phase of its new multimillion dollar computer system upgrades, which will improve patient care and hospital functions.

"When Ameris purchased the hospitals they had said what they wanted to do was to focus on our core business," Ben Bizzle, director of information technology for the hospital, said. "What Ameris committed to was looking at our core business and doing everything they could to enhance the quality of service we provide through that core 
business. It was our responsibility, as management within the hospital, to take a look at our areas and see how we could contribute to that. Being director of technology, the first thing I looked at was how we could take the technology available to us today and use it to enhance the quality of patient care."

Bizzle said the first logical step was looking at a comprehensive electronic system for providing patient care and recording data. He explained that all hospitals have some sort of computer system that they use in tracking physician orders, nurses' orders, patient 
information, billing and various other things within the hospital system.

"We had one (computer system) that we used when we were Baptist and it was limited in its functionality," Bizzle said. "I started talking to Ameris about a year ago about some opportunities we might have to change to a different system."

 
What It Does

After looking into several systems Ameris decided go with HMS Systems out of Nashville, Tenn., in October of last year. In November 2005 Great River Medical Center started the implementation process of the new system and on Feb. 1 they went live with a number of components of the system.

"We had a very smooth and successful transition from the old system," Bizzle said. "The difference in this product and the product we had before is that we have added a number of what we call modules to the system that allow us to do things like have electronic medical records and move away from the paper charts that sit in filing 
cabinets. It also will allow us to provide physicians with access to patient information from their home or office so they can actually check on patients anytime and anywhere."
The new system also allows nurses to use a wireless laptop at bedside to enter in things such as a patient's vital signs instead of using paper charts.

"It is easier to use, it seems to be more accurate from the empirical data we have

gotten so far, it is much easier to track orders and the results are available to anyone with access," Jack Neil, staff development director for the hospital, said. "It will also help eliminate frequent patient complaints like, 'I've already given my information to the nurse in the emergency room, why do I have to give it again?"

Neil said that with the system when a patient gives the nurse in the ER a list of medication and goes to another unit of the hospital they will not have to give the information again, instead they will just confirm data that is already there and available to nurses at the touch of a key.

"It is all electronic," Bizzle said. "One of the things the health care community has always struggled with is its timeliness in providing information and care to the people who need it. Technology provides you the opportunity to be timely in providing that needed information and care and the reason it does that is because of the efficiency it provides. The accuracy of information that is on hand and available increases because of the fact that staff members are just confirming what has already been taken and the room for error is decreased because the more people touch something the greater 
opportunity there is for error to occur."

Bizzle said by moving away from having paper documentation and making the move to electronic documentation of all patient records, the capacity to share information with physicians, share information throughout the hospital, and provide a better quality of continued care for patients from the time they come through the door to repeat 
business with the hospital will increase. He said with the new system the hospital will be able to keep the information gathered from a patient's previous visit within the computer system so that when a patient comes in all that information is available at the touch of key.

 
What’s Online and What’s Coming

On Feb. 1 the hospital went online with the financial piece of the system, which includes patient accounting, as well as accounts payable and materials management. Also brought online was the clinical piece of the system, which includes order entry, and a new laboratory package was added, which allows hospital staff members with access, to track lab results electronically. A electronic radiological filing system was also added to better track radiology charts, as well as an electronic pharmacy package to better control the administration of drugs within the hospital.

"The next phase of implementation will be to establish a wireless network throughout the hospital allowing nurses to go into patient rooms with their PCs rather than paper charts, as well as allowing physicians to go in with tablet PCs and be able to actually enter their orders right at the patient's bedside," Bizzle said. "This piece will also include the opportunity to have the physicians accessing patient data from their office or home. Our goal is to provide anywhere, anytime access to physicians. Obviously that is going to increase the quality of care for the patient. If we are in a critical position with a patient, contacting the physician and allowing him to look at the patient's information at home, office or wherever they might be, is going to increase the quality of care and expedite the process of getting the patient the care they need. Bizzle said the next phase of implementation should be completed by June 22. He also said patients should not be concerned about information being accessible online because it isn't going to be. "The reason there is no concern with security is the same reasons we currently don't have any concern," Bizzle said. "We have an intranet with security measures in place that block us from the outside world. As any company would protect their data, we have security measures in place that do not allow access from the outside to just anyone. We have encryption methods, security passwords and so forth that protect the patient data. There should be absolutely no concern whatsoever. When we speak of patient data being available online, we are talking about within the confines of the hospital to specific people, with specific log-ons and passwords. The appropriate people that should have access to that information are the only ones that do have access."

 
Security and Data Protection

Bizzle also said that patients should also not be concerned with loss of data.

"We have redundant systems in place, as well as daily back-ups of the data, so if we were to experience a crash we have four levels of failure to loose data," Bizzle said. "In essence, we would have to have four points of simultaneous data corruption and failure in order for there to be data loss. We keep off-site back-ups of all the data so the most data we can possibly lose would be 24 hours and that information would just have to be entered back into the system." Bizzle said switching to the new system was not easy. He said there were millions of lines of codes to be reviewed, hundreds of thousands of files to be built and it took a tremendous number of man hours to implement the new system.

"One of the things I think it is important for the community to realize about Ameris' commitment to the quality of health care we provide here, is the fact that we are not talking about a computer system that cost a couple of thousand dollars," Bizzle said. "We are talking about a multimillion dollar investment to this community that they made with this computer system alone. This is only one facet of the things that we are working on to improve health care here, but this was a multimillion dollar investment from this company specifically to enhance health care to this community. This company 
is extremely committed to a long-term relationship in Mississippi County, and this is one of those commitments."

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