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Emergency care gets electronic boost at UT Medical Center |
| By
Jim Winkler |
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Nov 18, 2008
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| Churton Budd explained some of the new electronic medical record system technology to Emergency Department nurses Laura Hickey, left, and Sheri Morris, center, and Diane Smith, Emergency Department nursing director. |
An old refrain — “Where is Mr. Smith’s chart?”— is no longer heard these days in The University of Toledo Medical Center Emergency Department.
And emergency physicians and nurses like Dr. Kristopher Brickman and Laura Hickey now have more time to spend with patients and less time tracking down patient charts, talking on the phone or hovering over a fax machine.
The Emergency Department has gone paperless, installing more than two dozen laptop and desktop computers that have replaced the old-fashioned clipboards and paper charts.
Tuesday, Oct. 28, was the first day physicians and nurses used the new electronic medical record system called Horizon Emergency Care developed by San Francisco-based McKesson Corp., a health-care services and information technology company that has partnered with the hospital in its digital hospital project.
Emergency Department physicians and nurses enter relevant medical information onto computerized charts, including room assignments, complaints, conditions and symptoms, triage, allergies and current medications and discharge instructions. With the old system, only one person at a time could look at the paper medical chart or add notes to it. With the computer system in place, nurses and doctors will have access at any time.
The conversion, which was led by Churton Budd, a longtime computer and information technology specialist and a nurse in the Emergency Department, streamlines the management of the 30,000 emergency cases that the department annually handles and the countless reams of paper they generate.
The new system amasses an array of information, updated in real-time, and organizes it on a master grid showing the status of each patient and the doctor and nurse assigned.
It provides alerts that test results are available. Consent forms can be scanned in quickly, and details of past medical visits are cross-referenced.
One feature of the software program alerts caregivers about potential problems such as deadly allergies or drug interactions, reducing errors and saving lives.
“The technology has really matured because of the development of Wi-Fi,” Budd said.
Included in the new technology are six, lightweight, highly mobile tablet computers manufactured by Austin, Texas-based Motion Computing that allow physicians and nurses to use a pen-like stylus to input patient information instead of a keyboard and mouse. The devices include a camera and a bar-code scanner and can be used easily at patients’ bedsides and can be disinfected easily.
More than 120 Emergency Department physicians and nurses have been trained and authorized to use the system. Adequate protections to ensure the privacy of patients are in place.
In addition to being a time-saver, the electronic records will reduce potential medical errors by eliminating illegible handwriting.
Diane Smith, Emergency Department nursing director, is excited about the transition to a paperless system, a project that was first discussed in the hospital more than a decade ago.
She said the department applauds the convenient access to patients’ charts. Having patient information at their fingertips will help nurses increase efficiency, safety and patient satisfaction, she stressed.
Dr. Ronald McGinnis, associate professor of psychiatry and UT Medical Center medical director, also is delighted that the department has gone paperless, taking a major step in the medical center’s plans to become “a digital hospital.”
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