Citizens Shines During Joint Commission Survey
One of MEDITECH's most progressive customers, Citizens Memorial Healthcare, shares details of its recent nursing accreditation visit.


On the heels of a positive Joint Commission visit, nurses at Citizens Memorial Healthcare (Bolivar, MO) are eager to share their exceptional survey results with the rest of the MEDITECH community. We recently had the opportunity to speak with Kim Maples, RN, BSN, I.S. specialist at Citizens, about the areas where this nationally recognized health care system excelled the most.


MEDITECH: To start, how did you prepare for your Joint Commission visit?

Maples: We do frequent mock surveys in all areas of our organization, so we can be ready for any type of regulatory visit. For Joint Commission specifically, we also used teams that went through all of the regulations, to make sure we were meeting the current guidelines.


MEDITECH: What did the nurse surveyors think of Citizens' use of the MEDITECH Electronic Medical Record (EMR)?

Maples: During these visits, surveyors typically select patients randomly within the system and use their medical records as a roadmap to evaluate a health care organization's compliance standards, patient safety, and quality of care. As surveyors trace the patient's experience in a health care environment, they observe and talk to physicians, nurses, and other staff members who are directly involved in patient care. Our surveyors were extremely impressed, not only with our software solution, but because we use just one single source EMR for the entire continuum of care.

In speaking and interacting with our surgeons, the surveyors also commented that in all the hospital visits they've performed throughout the country, they had never witnessed an EMR solution that surgeons fully embraced and utilized, until now. Our EMR is more efficient than paper, and it's specific to the patient. And because Citizens consistently hosts site visits, our surgeons are used to demonstrating the system to others and pulling up necessary information, including post-op notes, data and time stamps, and the OR record.

Also, since we use MEDITECH's Operating Room Management (ORM) solution in conjunction with Physician Documentation (Pdoc) and Dragon Naturally Speaking for our speech recognition needs, physicians are able to easily get their post-op notes into the system. All pertinent real-time information then flows directly to the EMR for easy access. Needless to say, everyone was thrilled with our top-notch clinician I.T. utilization and ongoing patient care initiative efforts.


MEDITECH: What were some other highlights of your nursing system?

Maples: When the surveyors met with our infection control nurse, we were told our Infection Control plan, Risk Assessment, and patient safety strategies were exceptionally advanced. In fact, the surveyors commented that our infection control plan was the most sophisticated they'd ever seen.


MEDITECH: We know Citizens serves and provides an Electronic Health Record (EHR) for the full continuum of care. What were the surveyors impressions of the integration of the EHR?

Maples: The surveyors were most impressed with our level of integration between Long Term Care (LTC) and Home Care. Our hospice nurses use MEDITECH's LTC Patient Care Solution (PCS) to document their visits within the resident's LTC account. Since all information flows directly to our EMR, the long term care nurses can view hospice nurse documentation, access the patient's current status, and make any necessary changes. This is a huge win in terms of patient care collaboration, interdepartmental communication, and safety. Additionally, the surveyors thought our telehealth system had a good layout, and they were impressed with how fast they could access notes within the system.

Our health care organization also has a generic psych unit, which is fully integrated. Assessments, care goals, and other essential data elements from each discipline are pulled into one assessment for the Interdisciplinary Team assessment (IDT). As you can see, integration has been key in our quest for continued patient care success.


MEDITECH: Any final thoughts?

Maples: Ironically, in the beginning, the nurse surveyor assigned to our visit had certain preconceived negative notions of MEDITECH. One of my goals was to change his views by the end of his visit with us. Denni McColm, our CIO, was also a huge advocate on my behalf. She explained how she and many others within our organization regularly travel around the country to discuss and demonstrate the many things Citizens has accomplished and been recognized for, using the MEDITECH system.

Hearing that, while being immersed in our tight-knit culture, interacting with our nurses and physicians, and witnessing the high-level of patient care and safety standards we've set forth, the nurse surveyor retracted his initial opinions. In fact, he was so supportive of our efforts that he planned to share some of our Best Practices and give our name to a few organizations who are still struggling with their implementations.

Naturally, I was beyond pleased. MEDITECH has been one of the main contributing factors to our ongoing success, and to have the nurse surveyor truly realize and respect that, really helped validate all our hard work and our constant commitment to patient-centered care.