Alec - Protector of mankind

Hello again,

After introducing you to how IT is changing in the healthcare industry, I thought it might be beneficial to give some insight to how it is specifically affecting my hospital.

If we take a step back a few years, the healthcare industry was a paper-based system. Now this has worked for a long time and there have been improvements to the system, however it has reached it’s maximum potential. In order to take health care to the next level, we must incorporate information technology to connect all facets of our firm in the most efficient and reliable way.

Anne Arundel Medical Center (AAMC) is serving more and more patients ever year, which has required us to stay focused on serving a large quantity of patients to the best of our ability. I believe that a very important step to reach our goals is to integrate our Electronic Health Record system, Alec, to replace an outdated and inferior paper system. Alec allows a patient’s medical records to be saved electronically, so that physicians can bring up their charts and immediately see all of their medical information. This can be critical when the patient is admitted to the emergency room. It is also time saving because a doctor will be able to view images such as X-rays, MRIs as well as other important displays without having to ask a nurse for them because they will be accessible on the computer or handheld tablet that is with them.

A digitized medical record will also allow our doctors to order lab tests, procedures, prescriptions and send the correct coding to our billing department, right from the examination room. This saves time and money, because we will no longer have the need for extra nurses to run documents to and from these different departments. Alec also limits the amount of lost documents and human error that regularly occurs in a paper based system.

Specifically pertaining to the profitability of our hospital, the billing software that Alec provides will reduce the amount of coding errors, and increase the government reimbursements. Since a large number of our patients are on Medicare and Medicaid, the government covers many of their costs. This means that we must enter and send the correct codes for each procedure in order to receive a government reimbursement. Alec is important because it essentially “spell checks” our coding, thus increasing our return rate.

Until next time

IT in the Healthcare Industry

Doctors, nurses, health administrators and patients; are you tired of the endless paperwork that is associated with any and all visit to the doctor’s office or hospital? Well the time has some for the health industry to revolutionize the way that it conducts its day-to-day practices. Information technology has become essential to improving the quality and efficiency of healthcare. In hospitals and doctors offices throughout the world, health professionals are adopting Electronic Health Records (EHR) that increase the quality of care, while reducing the costs.

The status quo has for a long time been the paper charts that would track information about each and every patient, and be filed in seemingly endless filing cabinets. This system was time consuming, error prone, and used an absurd amount of paper and space. Doctors would have to write down their visit with the patient, and then have the nurses decipher their handwriting, which would then be delivered to billing, the laboratory, and back to its rightful place in the filing cabinet. This is a system that has worked for a long time now, however technology has been developed that can greatly increase patient care and efficiency.

Electronic Health Records will allow health professionals to keep an up to date medical record of each patient that can simply be pulled up on a computer. This will allow the doctor to access the patients information without the need for a courier, and will also allow them to send for prescriptions, lab tests, and to send the proper coding to billing, all which will help both the doctor and patient. A new system has been implement at my hospital, Anne Arundel Medical Center, as we have recognized the almost limitless capabilities of this new technology. Essentially this is a network that instantly connects the professionals with all of the information they need to provide the best care they can to the patients.

Besides providing the best quality of care, Electronic Heath Records will help to reduce the cost of healthcare. This is a major concern in the profession as well as a topic of major debate in our government as health costs continue to mount. President Obama has stressed that our healthcare system must adapt to reduce the costs and that Electronic Health Records is one technology that will help use achieve our goals as an industry.