In the words of the famed hockey player Wayne Gretzky, IASIS Healthcare skates “to where the puck is going, not to where it has been.” In 2004, with the national spotlight on electronic health records getting brighter, the IASIS executive team took that strategy to heart and confidently made the decision to spend nearly $32 million on a four-year implementation of a systemwide, fully integrated clinical information system.
Very few other hospital systems have been able to commit the necessary resources for similar IT projects, which makes the feat that 10-year-old IASIS achieved that much more unique. In fact, recent studies reveal that less than 10% of U.S. hospitals have EHR utilization in at least one department; that figure is significantly less for hospitals using EHRs across their facilities.
IASIS' strong belief in technology and steadfast commitment to innovation proved invaluable when tackling our Advanced Clinical Systems Initiative, which includes four main components: EHR, computerized charting, bar-code scanning for medications and physician portal.
The EHR enables each caregiver to efficiently assess patient status, then document and review patient data at the point of care. Subsequently, the document management system captures, indexes, stores and retrieves patient information.
Computerized charting enables nurses to update information quickly, which gives them more time for direct care. The electronic documentation includes information taken directly from medical monitoring devices, as well as laboratory and radiology results.
Dispensing medication is more precise with bar-code scanning. The system checks to be sure everything is right – the right medicine, in the right dose, being given to the right patient, at the right time, in the right way. If not, a warning screen alerts the nurse to stop.
Through a Web-based physician portal, physicians have access to vital patient information at any time, from any computer with Internet capabilities. Compiling this information from disparate sources and having it readily available not only enhances care delivery, but also has promoted accelerated adoption of information technology among physicians.
The feature that most distinguishes IASIS' clinical information system from other EHR systems is its interdepartmental integration. All departments—from emergency and inpatient to diagnostic and surgical—are sharing information that is readily and immediately available to all physicians via the portal. This true collaborative environment decreases duplicative tests and procedures; improves patient outcomes; and leads to an overall much more accurate, efficient and transparent way of delivering healthcare.
From the outset, every IASIS facility had input into how the system would be configured. The IT department convened nurses from each of the hospitals to devise a universal format that best fit how they would use the technology. In total, a team of 110 IASIS employees worked with our outside vendor to implement the entire system. In addition to the physical labor invested, we spent approximately $32 million on hardware, software and other vendor services to implement the system across our 16 hospitals.
Because we focused on one standard system across the network, installation was faster. As each hospital implemented its systems, staff kept a daily diary that was shared with the next hospital slated to go live. This enabled the hospitals to share what they learned, enabling each subsequent implementation to be better than the one before. This systemwide, standardized approach and disciplined method of sharing best practices enabled IASIS to do in four years what would have taken more than 13 years if we had followed the typical hospital installation of 10 months set up in a sequential fashion.
With a common system in place, IT support requests are easier to fulfill and data can be compared from facility to facility and across the entire system. This enables valid benchmarking, which makes it easy to identify high-performing areas as well as those that need improvement.
IASIS has received both qualitative and quantitative confirmation that our Advanced Clinical Systems Initiative is a tremendous success. All of the results to date positively affect patient care, either directly or indirectly:
- Improved processes for patient safety.
- More accurate and comprehensive view of patient history.
- Single source of real-time information.
- Reduced documentation time.
- Enhanced physician satisfaction and recruiting efforts.
- Improved tracking of metrics and performance analysis.
IASIS is most proud that our hospitals have seen significant improvement with a variety of CMS core measures ranging from aspirin at arrival and discharge to adult smoking cessation. All IASIS hospitals have improved their quality and patient-outcome scores since implementing this new systemwide technology; a trend expected to continue.
It's been more than five years since IASIS took a lead role in healthcare information technology by becoming an early adopter in the EHR movement. Now, with government incentives in place for hospitals and office-based physicians to embrace EHRs, IASIS already has nearly 3 million patient records stored in its system. While the definition of meaningful use is yet to come, IASIS has a solid clinical foundation in place and is continuing to move forward with upgrades and additional solutions that make business sense and appear to support the goals of the stimulus funding.
IASIS is continually monitoring the information coming from Washington D.C., and is working closely with our healthcare IT partner to assess our readiness and put roadmaps in place as requirements are defined. But ultimately, it all comes back to providing high-quality, safe and efficient care for the patients and communities IASIS serves.
Brian Loflin
Chief information officer
IASIS Healthcare
Franklin, Tenn.
