What Works: The Economics of Electronic Efficiency
What Works: The Economics of Electronic
Efficiency (60KB PDF): Health Management Technology,
February, 2004, by Steve Slutzky
Problem
Our decentralized report processing required that reports
be printed, sorted, and faxed or mailed from multiple hospital
departments. This duplication of effort was costly, time-consuming,
and inefficient. In fact, after doing a comprehensive analysis,
we found that our paper process cost us $.42 per report.
Solution
Saint Elizabeth's installed Elysium Distribution Manager
which brings together all of our mainframe computer systems
using HL7 data feed, and electronically consolidates, distributes,
and stores the data.
There has been an estimated 40% reduction in the phone
calls and faxes to the lab and medical records department
because physician staff can easily find results on-line.
In fact, the St. Elizabeth lab volume has increased 40%
over this period without any increase in clerical staff
to handle the inquiries. Wait time for stat and critical
results went from 10-24 hours to zero, with abnormal labs
flagged for immediate attention.
A large Northern Kentucky Orthopedic group uses Clinical
Messaging to route discharge summaries to their billing
service, reducing the number of days required to bill from
10 days to 2 days.
Read the full article (60KB
PDF).
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