National
Efficiently Switching to EMR
By
Jun 29, 2012 - 7:12:46 PM

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - The five-year plan put into place by the Obama administration to transition doctors and hospitals to electronic medical records (EMR) focuses on the goal of decreasing costs and offering superior safety for patients. The federal government has promised funding to hospitals and other health systems to help cover the costs of the transition. Failure to comply by 2015 will result in cuts to Medicare, which could result in detrimental financial losses for both doctors and hospitals.

IT experts and medical professionals are trying to find ways to adhere to the timeline and ensure federal incentives. Healthcare IT leaders realize that strong planning is crucial to ensure seamless, cost-effective transitions that both improve efficiency and uphold customer satisfaction. In order to successfully transfer to EMR by the 2015 deadline, hospitals must prepare now.

Paul Moriarty, the Manager of IT Support Services for Rochester General Hospital (RGH) and his IT support team are supporting 7,500 employees. RGH ranks first in New York for overall medical care, is the fourth largest cardiac center in state of New York and is recognized as one of the nation’s top cardiovascular hospitals.

Before the EMR transition process began, Paul’s team was utilizing HelpSTAR, a help desk solution for hospital employees to submit issues through portals, emails and phone calls. With his team handling 5,000 IT service tickets per month prior to the EMR changeover, Moriarty knew that their help desk technology would need to be able to handle a huge influx of additional requests when the transition was underway. To ensure high levels of service and satisfaction were preserved throughout the EMR move, Moriarty had to move quickly.

Getting ahead of the looming mandate, Moriarty decided to assess and update his existing help desk processes so when the new computerization of health records were finally implemented, the spike in new tickets could be managed efficiently and seamlessly.

Moriarty looked to HelpSTAR to identify and leverage features he knew his hospital would need, such as self-help tools and prompts (including alarms, follow-up reminders and automatic priority escalation)and intelligent queuing. Along with these features, HelpSTAR’s built-in rapid problem resolution and extensive reporting capabilities provided just the combination Moriarty’s team needed. Moriarty designed customized ticket rules that directed requests to available team members instantly, providing a faster and more seamless workflow. This fix brought their number of electronic tickets versus help desk calls to a manageable 3:1 ratio. With Moriarty’s proactive planning, the IT help desk has improved the efficiency and customer satisfaction needed to help facilitate a smooth EMR transition for RGH.

To learn more about Rochester General Hospital (RGH), visit the http://www.rochestergeneral.org/rochester-general-hospital/

To see if HelpSTAR can help you, visit http://www.helpstar.com/


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