Success Stories with ED Information Systems

Exempla Saint Joseph Hospital in Denver had struggled for years to implement an EMR that met its needs and integrated with its existing MEDITECH HIS and Kaiser Permanente's Epic ambulatory EMR system. They implemented Picis ED PulseCheck^® and found the benefits were immediate: instant access to patient information; a decrease in lost clinical information and duplicate testing; improved charging; and interoperability – ED doctors can access a patient's outpatient and inpatient clinical record, enabling them to accurately and efficiently treat patients.

Justin Chang, MD
Exempla Health System
EDIS Integrates with Legacy and Ambulatory EMRs

Long before the government stimulus package for EMRs, Catholic Medical Center in Manchester, NH, found that installing Picis' ED PulseCheck as its EMR was well worth the price. In one year the hospital increased its revenue from the ED by 48% thanks to a host of improvements. "We utilized the EMR to assist us in capturing lost charges. The system was set up in such a way that through the completeness of the documentation we were able to let the system help us identify the charges that we could capture."

Lu Mulla, RN
Catholic Medical Center
Tech with a Twist

Planning to move to a much larger space, Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News, Va., decided to switch from paper records to the ED PulseCheck EDIS, which helped them shave 40 minutes off their average patient turnaround time. “The physicians are satisfied because they are no longer hunting for charts. Because the system is Web-based, if physicians do need to fill something in, they can do it from home. Plus, previously, to look up a record for a patient complaint might have taken two days. Now I can look at the record in three minutes and get back to them right away.”

Gary Kavit, MD
Riverside Regional Medical Center
Information Systems Improve Hospital Emergency Departments

”The problem we had to solve was inconsistent charge amounts from month to month, even with the same volume of patients. ED PulseCheck enables us to optimize our delivery of care and accuracy of documentation. It helps us better manage how we treat patients in the ED, and helps the hospital better manage the revenue tied to these services.

Lorna Prutzman, RN
University of Colorado Hospital
With Software Integration, the ED Finds Hidden Revenue

”Exempla St. Joseph’s Hospital in Denver installed Picis ED PulseCheck to have the EDIS integrate with other clinical applications at the hospital as well as its referring clinics (using Kaiser’s EHR from Epic Systems Corp). “Physicians and nurses have so much information at their fingertips now. To be able to see what’s going on with the patient from multiple systems is crucial. If you can give clinicians tools to more efficiently do their job, it’s inevitable that you will see improvement.”

Justin Chang, MD, emergency department physician
Exempla St. Joseph Hospital
I.T. Helps ERs Get Connected

Fair Oaks is the first hospital in the Inova Health network to convert its ED to Picis' electronic documentation system, a move that radically streamlines the management of 42,000 emergency cases annually and the countless reams of paper they generated. Eliminating heft and hassle are just two of the goals. "The difference (with Picis) is like night and day." 

Douglas Smith, MD, chairman of emergency medicine,
Inova Fair Oaks Hospital
Emergency Care Gets Online Boost at Inova

“The ED PulseCheck system went live in October 2005, and paid for itself in just six months. We are getting complete nursing and physician documentation in one place, with order entry, medication services, and lab results that feed back into our system.”

Lois Vandercook
Henry Ford Wyandotte Hospital
Henry Ford Health System Expands Picis S/W Rollout

"From the corporate perspective, we were looking at really improving patient satisfaction and being able to document and show improved patient care. The decision was made to implement the automated system first in the emergency departments and then roll it out through the rest of the hospitals. The ED is the window to the community and I wanted to make that as efficient as possible."

Richard Hutsell
Daughters of Charity
Hospital emergency departments find relief in IT

"Mount Sinai has seen improvement in both hospital and physician billing from ED PulseCheck Thanks to enhanced charge capture, physician revenue increased from $2.5 million to about $8 million in 2007. Likewise, hospital revenue jumped from $9.8 million to a projected $14 million."

Kevin Baumlin, MD
Mount Sinai Hospital
Nothing Measured, Nothing Gained

"We have a small ED, very few beds, and we see over 60,000 patients. The patients were shuffled constantly and we had a problem tracking those patients, and now that problem - has been eradicated. With the system, it works pretty much seamlessly throughout our ER trying to follow these patients around the various parts of the hospital. Even up as far as radiology and CAT scan, we can track them easily."

Neil Meehan, MD
Lawrence General Hospital

“All around it was a wise financial move. We almost quadrupled what we were able to code out on the physician charges just because of improved documentation. Any time you improve your documentation, you're achieving your goals. Better patient care translates through better documentation. We saw a decrease in costs. We saw increase in revenue by improved documentation. We were capturing charges that we lost before and by attaching charges to nursing templates, etc., the facility charges went up.”

Mark Cameron, MD
Washington Regional Hospital
Redesign of Emergency Department Saves Washington Regional $4.2 Million

“I am very pleased with PulseCheck. This system has let us grow and develop into a streamlined institution. Our ED sees approximately 40,000 patients per year and we were able to decrease patient length-of-stay from 3.2 hours to 2.1 hours in our first year. Our return on the investment was substantial; we had a difficult time finding transcriptionists, and with the implementation of PulseCheck, we were able to thoroughly capture charges and reduce five full-time transcriptionists.”

R. Scott Magley
Altoona Hospital
Information System Improves Emergency Department Efficiency, Raises Bottom Line

“It makes good sense for hospitals to move toward computerized tracking systems in the ED. Not only do the systems improve customer services, but it helps to guide the practitioners with risk management, lab tests and result reminders, patient safety and ultimately in controlling costs.”

Pat Wise, RN
HIMSS
High-Tech EDs: Catching Up With Today’s Technology

“When we came up live we finally had the tools to analyze how we were doing things and that’s when our process improvement really started. Before when you are on paper, it is very difficult to measure. This allowed us to see what we were doing real time.”

Pocono Medical Center
The Waiting Room is Closed

“Washington Regional exceeded all of its goals, especially the projected return on investment. While hoping to see a $350,000 ROI in 14 months, the ED reduced costs by $100,000, recouped $208,000 in facility charges and captured more than $3.9 million in additional charges. Net improvement was $4.2 million in less than 12 months.”

Becky Magee
Washington Regional
Redesign of Emergency Department Saves Washington Regional $4.2 Million

"Our emergency department had an initial return on investment in six months by saving $175,000 in coding and dictation costs a year when we reassigned our five-member dictation team to other departments. Plus, when we began capturing charge data electronically at the point of care, we doubled our capture of charges monthly from $800,000 to $1.6 million. This also helps reduce denials for reimbursement and allows us to bill payers faster."

Matt Bouchard, MD
Altoona Regional Health System
ED on Track With IT

"Staff loved the fact that PulseCheck is Web-based, and there is no known downtime — as backups can be performed while the system is up and running. It offered good support and is easy to integrate with Meditech. It offered a nice package from triage to disposition."

Overlake Hospital Medical Center
Integrating ED With Enterprise