Lake
Regional Health System Transforms Operating Room Care with
MEDITECH
(10/15/2009)
Lake Regional Health System (Osage
Beach, MO) is a state-of-the-art health care facility
familiar to residents and visitors alike in Missouri's famous
Lake of the Ozarks region. The organization recently made
some extensive changes to its Operating Room department—including
replacement of their previous best-of-breed OR solution with
MEDITECH's integrated Operating Room Management (ORM) product—and
leaders are finding that change may be just what the doctor
ordered.
Already a customer using many of our core hospital products,
Lake Regional wished to improve surgical care delivery by
extending the MEDITECH solution to the Surgical Services
Department. "With MEDITECH already installed in other
hospital departments, implementing ORM would bring us one
step closer to our goal of becoming a completely electronic
facility," states Cindy Otradovec, RN, CIO at Lake
Regional. "Furthermore, our physicians and clinicians
already valued what MEDITECH had to offer, so the new
technology was an easy sell for OR providers."
ORM
Implementation Team Reaches Out to Clinicians
Lake Regional believes their ORM rollout was successful
because they had a focused strategic plan, administrative and
clinician support, and a dedicated hospital ORM
implementation team. "Our team set the tone for the
entire project, putting patient care at the forefront, and
placing value on teamwork," says Otradovec, who goes on
to praise Jim Howard, surgery educator and OR team leader,
for making the transitional process as smooth as possible for
everyone involved.
"Jim was
able to communicate effectively to department leaders and end
users about what needed to be done and how it needed to be
done," she adds. "He clearly explained how
utilizing ORM would enhance patient safety, increase clarity,
and improve scheduling capabilities throughout our OR, as
well as hospital-wide."
As the OR team leader, Howard was also able to gain the
confidence of the few hesitant staff members, and steer them
in the right direction. "Jim, along with his entire team,
made sure everyone was comfortable, on the same page, and
ready to begin the transition," says Otradovec. "And
because of this, staff members listened and became equally
committed to making the implementation a success."
Personalized training and marketing strategies were also key
to their success. For instance, to introduce the ORM
initiative to surgical directors and office managers, the OR
team sent each staff member a personal note explaining the
project. "It was smart to start with office managers,
because then they helped us a great deal by circulating the
information," says Tammy Rhoads, ancillary systems
analyst.
In order to get physicians involved, the team leaders found
they needed to keep the lines of communication open. "Team
leaders posted information about the initiative on bulletin
boards in the OR, and they sent e-mails and faxes to each
physician office so they knew what was coming," says
Rhoads.
When training nurses and physicians for the new technology
solution, leaders took a similar, hands-on approach. "We
focused on training in small groups, and in particular, we
allowed nurses ample time to practice in the TEST system
before go-LIVE," says Howard. "Physicians at the
health care facility attended one-on-one training sessions
and were given demonstrations of the software at medical
staff meetings."
Seamless
Integration Leads to Improved OR Efficiency
Since going LIVE with ORM, communication among care providers
has improved considerably. According to Karen Phillips,
project coordinator at Lake Regional: "Nurses are now
able to complete their tasks within the system and prepare
for their daily surgical cases and procedures ahead of time."
And because ORM is fully integrated with other MEDITECH
applications, all patient information is accessible across
the continuum of care. "Efficiencies within the OR have
improved due to seamless integration," says Otradovec.
"There is a continuity of documentation because all
pertinent patient data and results are available immediately
from the beginning to the end of the entire pre-surgery,
surgery, and recovery process."
In particular, nurses like that they can go straight to the
EMR from ORM and view real-time surgical information,
allergies, medications, and results. "Nurses have seen
improvements in medication reconciliation and spend less time
searching for all clinical data, because it's already there
in one centralized location within the EMR," says Rhoads.
"This is vital for interdisciplinary communication and
continued patient safety and care."
The advantages of having an integrated solution extend to
scheduling as well. "Conflict checking has helped us
make sure patients are not scheduled with the same physician
at the same time," says Phillips. "Now, if a
conflict is present, care providers are made aware before
they schedule or document any further. This piece of
functionality has greatly improved the management of patient
appointments, physician tasks, and decision-making processes."
Gearing
Up for More Advanced Functionality
2009 is definitely shaping up to be a transformative year for
Lake Regional, as the organization plans to go LIVE with
MEDITECH's OR Big Board in the near future. "We are
still determining which hardware solution we'd like to have
supporting the OR Big Board functionality, and then we hope
to go with it LIVE in pre-op first," says Otradovec.
Later, with the ORM implementation behind them, the next step
will be to implement more of MEDITECH's Advanced Clinical
products and other functionality throughout the various areas
of the hospital—including Physician Care Manager,
Emergency Department Management, and speech recognition
technology.
"We attribute our ongoing success to our committed
relationship with MEDITECH," says Otradovec. "We
are excited to move even closer to becoming a completely
electronic organization, with more Advanced Clinical
functionality in the months ahead."
MEDITECH
Medical
Information Technology, Inc.
MEDITECH Circle
Westwood, MA 02090
781-821-3000
www.meditech.com