Agh Launches Electronic Medical Record
01-28-2013
A year after beginning the project, Atlantic General Hospital is ready
to launch PERKS, or the Patient Electronic Record-Keeping Service. The
new system, which is scheduled to go live January 28, digitally links
all documentation and physician orders for care throughout the inpatient
and outpatient units of the hospital. So, no matter where a patient’s
entry point or how many services received, his or her caregiver has access
to a full record updated in real time.
Electronic records provide a number of benefits, including improved efficiencies
in care because the incidence of duplicated testing is reduced. Electronic
records also eliminate time lost tracking down paper records from other
departments or pulling information from disparate systems. There are substantial
patient safety benefits, such as alerts that pop up in the system to warn
of potential errors. PERKS allows for:
Electronic physician order entry. Previously, when physicians ordered
testing, prescribed a medication or outlined a treatment plan for a patient,
they wrote down what was needed and gave the information to a unit secretary,
who then typed it up and either faxed it or sent it electronically to
the appropriate department to carry out. The PERKS system streamlines
the process: the physician directly enters his or her orders from a computer
tablet where the information is captured in the electronic system. PERKS
transmits the order to the appropriate department for action. The process
is streamlined, and there is less chance of error caused by misinterpreted
handwriting or transcription inaccuracies.
Built-in clinical alerts. The clinical staff at Atlantic General worked
closely with the IT staff during the development of PERKS to ensure that
appropriate alerts and pop-ups were built into the system to warn clinicians
of potential problems with the care being administered. One prime example
pertains to prescribing medication. If a provider tries to order a medication
that is on a patient’s allergy list or that will conflict with another
medication a patient is already taking, this will prompt an alert in PERKS.
“Clinicians have always attempted to assure we never order medications
that are contraindicated by another drug or by an allergy of the patient.
With the thousands of available drugs, it is impossible to know all of
the potential contraindications. However, with PERKS’s assistance
we can process data from many sources electronically in seconds, providing
immediate notification to the physician of a potential problem before
it is ordered,” said Colleen Wareing, vice president of patient
care services at Atlantic General Hospital.
Medication barcoding. In 2008, Atlantic General instituted a barcode scanning
system that allowed the nursing staff to scan a patient’s wristband
and confirm in a computer system that they had the correct patient as
well as the correct medication orders for the patient. With PERKS, the
barcoding has been expanded to the actual vial or package of medication,
which allows the nurse to validate the correct drug, dose, route and time
for administration. The nurse now scans the barcode on the patient’s
wristband and then scans the medication the pharmacy has prepared. Any
conflicts with the five rights of medication safety – right patient,
right medication, right dosage, right time, right route – will result
in an alert in PERKS.
Improved patient rounding and care coordination. With all departments
connected to one system, a patient’s complete “chart”
and plan of care is available for instant review. The interdisciplinary
team, which includes the physician, nurse, pharmacist, therapists, dieticians,
chaplains, nurse case manager and other specially-trained associates meet
each morning to review inpatients’ care and plan for the day. This
team can pull up new radiology studies, lab results and clinician notes
much more quickly because there’s no lag time. As soon as tests
are completed, the results are available in PERKS. And, the system can
be accessed by the caregiver right in a patient’s room through care.connection,
the new multi-media devices that went live earlier in January.
Atlantic General began its journey with electronic medical records in
2008, when it installed an electronic medical record system in its Atlantic
General Health System outpatient physician practices. The organization
pushed on to install the electronic system in its Emergency Department
in 2011, and they have spent the last 12 months expanding PERKS to the
entire hospital.
“This has been a very solid implementation,” said Barbara
Riddell, Atlantic General’s vice president of information services.
“I have been through many implementations in the last 16 years and
this one has been an excellent journey, with the clinical and business
team in the hospital working closely with our vendor partners to build
a system that always puts the patient at the center. The transition has
been smooth, which was made possible only through outstanding team work.”
In 2012, these efforts allowed Atlantic General to achieve Stage 1 Meaningful
Use, a federal mandate that requires hospitals install electronic medical
records by 2014. Atlantic General Hospital is one of only two hospitals
on the Eastern Shore to reach this status. They are ahead of more than
three-quarters of U.S. hospitals in doing so, based upon a recently published
federal report.
“We are in a unique position as a community and as a hospital in
this community, because of our ability to coordinate care throughout Worcester
County and southeast Sussex County,” said Michael Franklin, president
and CEO of Atlantic General Hospital. “Through Atlantic General’s
efforts, this community will have the most advanced system of care available.”