Johns Hopkins Bayview Reaches Stage 6, Moves One Step Closer to Paperless
(1/13/2010)

Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center has joined the growing ranks of MEDITECH customers who have achieved the prestigious Stage 6 Electronic Medical Record (EMR) adoption recognition from HIMSS Analytics—thus bringing the site one step closer to having all patient records available electronically.

According to Andrew Frake, senior director of information services, this achievement would not have been possible without the collaboration of many departments at the Medical Center and throughout Johns Hopkins Medicine. "Whether it was incorporating basic lab data in electronic form, using technology to dispense medications, or having a majority of our inpatient documentation in electronic format, a lot of people came together to make this a success," he says. "Our transition to an EMR environment confirms our commitment to providing safe and quality patient care for all patients."

The Medical Center began its quest for electronic medical records in 2003, when it implemented MEDITECH's Health Care Information System for streamlining patient information. At the time, few applications were involved—Admissions, Billing/Accounts Receivable, Scheduling, Medical Records, Pharmacy, Laboratory, and Radiology. Since then, John Hopkins gradually built on to this foundation with additional MEDITECH products, which have allowed its clinicians to access patient data and make decisions based on the most complete and up-to-date information. "Doctors can pull up patients' lab results and review them on-screen in their offices, and then enter orders based on those results," explains Frake. "Other health care providers can enter notes or easily document when a hospitalized patient received their last doses of medication."

The next step for Johns Hopkins to progress to a fully paperless environment, is to have a system in place where the patient data stored in EMRs can be shared with other health care facilities—and this may happen sooner rather than later. Johns Hopkins Medicine will participate in CRISP (Chesapeake Regional Information System for our Patients), the Maryland health information exchange network that will enable hospitals, insurance companies, and health care providers to securely share information about patients throughout Maryland.

"Participating in this network doesn't just make sense for health care providers, but also for the patient," says Amy Knight, M.D., hospitalist, Collaborative Inpatient Medicine Service, and medical advisor, information services. "If a doctor doesn't have any previous knowledge about a patient, it is extremely helpful to be able to go to a computer and pull up his or her medical history. It brings us up-to-date quickly, and enables us to provide the best and safest health care based on the patient's needs."

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