In today’s uncertain economic climate, hospitals and healthcare systems are under constant pressure to control costs while preserving patient outcomes and satisfaction.
Achieving this balance often requires a fresh look at expenditure, driven by innovation in automation, workload reduction, and better operational efficiencies. One critical area where this approach can have significant impact is in the management of medical record and patient histories.
REQUEST
In an ideal world, care teams would have immediate access to all relevant patient medical records and histories at the time of referral. Not only would this cut down on the time it takes to see a patient for a first appointment, but it would make that first appointment more meaningful.
However, currently many hospital systems and healthcare organizations continue to request and transfer medical records via fax. Before that critical initial appointment, care teams must first request patient medical histories, often from multiple providers and systems.
Implementing a system for automated records requests can help healthcare systems realize significant financial savings by eliminating repetitive and manual tasks, allowing care teams to instead focus on patient care.
COLLECT
Requiring staff members and patients to manually track down medical histories and records is time- and labor-intensive and can lead to gaps in critical knowledge for patient care.
Case in point: The surgical oncology department at a prestigious midwestern academic medical center tasked staff and clinicians with tracking down patient records from disparate systems across multiple facilities and healthcare systems.
These efforts were inefficient and left staff frustrated, records incomplete and often meant patients were waiting increasingly longer to receive care. The healthcare center implemented eHealth Connect® to retrieve and organize patient records and, within just a few months, the average wait time to receive records had dropped from 10 days to just three. And staff spend 87 percent less time gathering records.
The time saved allows care providers to spend more time on direct patient care and that time is used more efficiently. The medical center has been able to streamline intake and new patient processes, allow clinical teams to focus on patient care and increase patient satisfaction. That leads to reduced costs and increased revenue. All thanks to streamlined medical data collection.
ORGANIZE
Clinicians spend as much as 50 percent of their time working in Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). For every eight hours of scheduled time with patients, physicians spend nearly six hours on an electronic health record (EHR).
The information being complied is vital to patient care, but the ROI just isn’t there when it comes to having clinicians digging through and organizing reams of data to determine what is relevant.
An advanced technology platform such as eHealth Connect can rapidly comb through excess and siloed patient information then allow clinicians to utilize organized, actionable medical histories based on comprehensive clinical templates and specialty-driven requests.
Not only can this result in significant cost and time savings, but it also ensures healthcare providers have meaningful and productive patient visits.
DELIVERY
When requested records are seamlessly integrated into the existing clinical workflow in an EHR system, it’s another task care teams, and staff members can take off their to-do lists.
The bottom line? Automating the records collection and delivery process decreases costs for hospital and healthcare systems.
Discover how eHealth Technologies can help.
