Hays Medical Center Achieves Patient Safety, Better Outcomes with Reporting Tools
(12/17/2008)

MEDITECH's reporting capabilities are continuing to catch the attention of our customers. The powerful tools are fostering proactive decision-making, supporting clinical and financial guidance, and optimizing operational efficiency.

Earlier this year, we told you about the reporting successes a few of our customers have achieved using MEDITECH. One of these customers is Hays Medical Center (Hays, KS), who has been a long-term advocate of using MEDITECH's reporting capabilities.

"With MEDITECH's reporting capabilities, we are able to slice and dice data into customizable formats, meeting each of our departments' unique needs," says Jim Rorstrom, director of pharmacy. "For example, in the Pharmacy, reporting enables our staff to be more patient-focused, rather than task-focused. Patient-specific information can be located more easily though drill-down and filtering capabilities."

Improving Patient Safety and Clinical Outcomes
Hays is using reporting to prevent medical errors and to guide care teams. For example, by combining data from MEDITECH's Bedside Verification, eMAR, and Pharmacy products with their Pyxis system, Hays is able to monitor drug dispensing activity to ensure consistency between orders placed in MEDITECH and medication taken from the Pyxis dispensing system.

"Reporting on data gathered from our Patient Care System to Pyxis confirms that only the medications ordered from the physician are being dispensed," says Rorstrom. "If there are any outliers, such as an unauthorized staff member dispensing medications, or any other discrepancies, we are notified and we can take the necessary steps to address the issue."

Numerous other reports are used to monitor the quality of care throughout the hospital, ensuring care teams are following strict guidelines from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The reports are created with the help of products from the Institute for Health Metrics.

"Hays has a risk management and performance improvement committee led by several of our physicians, who use our quality reports to proactively monitor our care teams' quality of care," states Judy Purdy, director of risk management. "Our efforts have led Hays to exceed CMS' and Press Ganey's quality indicator benchmarks."

Taking the lead on quality and transparency initiatives, Hays publishes quality data on its public Web site. "Eventually, all hospitals will have to make quality data available to the public, in order to receive full CMS reimbursements," says Purdy. "We are excited to be a pioneer in this initiative."

Adjusting to Reimbursement Regulations while Improving the Bottom Line
CMS reimbursement regulations are quickly becoming a major concern for health care organizations. Since October 2007, hospitals have been required to follow changes in Diagnosis-Related Group (DRG) coding—the system used to determine hospital reimbursement rates based on the patient's medical condition. The DRG system now has three indicators associated with each code/hospital stay—denoting no complications, moderate complications, or critical complications.

"Using MEDITECH's Case Mix reports, we are able to proactively assess our CMS reimbursement amounts," says Bart Kenton, director of decision support and finance. "We can analyze where we stand at the end of this year with the DRG system relative to last year, to see how our bottom line is affected."

In addition to this hospital-wide analysis, Hays also uses the reports to monitor the level of DRG codes assigned to patients throughout each unit.

"We use the Case Mix reports to analyze trends in care, especially for those admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU)," says Kenton. "Based on the information presented, we can assess whether care teams are admitting patients with lower DRG codes into the ICU. This ensures ICU resources are allocated solely to critical care patients."

Promoting Efficiency in the Operating Room
Hays has also been improving Operating Room efficiency and increasing patient satisfaction.

"We are monitoring block utilization as well as block time utilization, helping the hospital to significantly limit the number of delayed start-times," states Bill Norris, director of surgery. "As a result, Hays is achieving higher capacity of its surgical blocks."

Limiting delayed start-times translates into cost-efficiencies as well as higher patient satisfaction.

"Surgical procedures, no matter how big or small, are nerve-wracking for patients and family members. We do our best to limit anxiety by ensuring procedures start on schedule," says Norris.

Achieving New Reporting Initiatives Hospital-Wide
Although Hays is already undertaking an impressive array of reporting efforts, they still hope to pursue new avenues by extending reporting efforts to all areas of the organization.

"We want to continue improving our ability to efficiently push data to the right person in the most useful format, and ensure decisions are made proactively rather than retrospectively," states Bill Overbey, senior vice president, chief information officer, and chief financial officer. "MEDITECH's reporting solution aids in these efforts, since all information is captured and made available in real time."