Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Oak Orchard Health, based in Brockport, New York, was growing. In July 2020, it obtained a personal practice that included 3 workplaces, which were utilizing a various EHR (Medent) then Oak Orchard’s eClinicalWorks platform.
To allow the fast shift after the acquisition, Oak Orchard kept the practice on Medent and executed treatments and workflows to be able to work around the distinctions. The objective was to supply a constant client experience throughout the company.
THE PROBLEM
“Very rapidly we found we needed to execute numerous treatments and workflows simply to be able to finish a client check out,” stated Jason Kuder, CIO at Oak Orchard Health. “The extremely first one was while personnel utilized Medent for the daily see. Each client that was seen from that point on at every encounter would by hand be developed in eCW so we might get claims out the door.
“So, an active client would basically have 2 accounts: one in Medent for the client chart and one in eCW for billing,” he continued. “The longer we stuck with 2 EHRs, the more we understood no matter the number of treatments or workflows we put in location, these 3 workplaces would be separated. We were no longer able to bend our resources throughout our company.”
To be competent in both Medent and eCW was a difficult job for service providers hectic seeing clients– and an assistance headache, he included. Throughout the years the company ended up being siloed. Working with ended up being harder given that suppliers were frequently not trained in either EHR.
“We likewise encountered issues with daily reporting, however more significantly, it made it much more challenging to report out for UDS,” Kuder discussed. “FQHC university hospital are needed to send every February, and this was a significant barrier for us.
“Retrieving information out of 2 EHRs and integrating the information sets to have the ability to report for UDS has actually been a significant battle each year given that acquisition,” he continued. “Patients might be in both systems, or in simply one. How they are recorded is really various, leading to long information recognition sessions– a big functional lift for our company.”
PROPOSITION
Economically, Oak Orchard Health might not toss anymore bodies at this issue. Even worse than that, personnel spirits was at an all-time low. With a big turnover in senior management, the brand-new CEO made it the No. 1 top priority to get the brand-new practice’s 3 websites onto eCW with the remainder of the company.
“We felt if we might get everyone onto the exact same EHR we would all be talking the very same language,” Kuder stated. “We would have a simpler time executing brand-new innovations, companywide treatments and workflows.
“Having numerous medical record platforms impacts everyone in the company– from how we path the incoming calls to how we record in a client’s chart,” he included. “Having everyone working from the very same EHR would enable us to be able to offer a more constant client experience.”
FULFILLING THE CHALLENGE
When health IT specialists discuss moving to a brand-new EHR, most concentrate on the information that requires to be moved from one area to the other, Kuder kept in mind.
“It is much more intricate than that,” he specified. “The hardest part in my viewpoint is attempting to train personnel on the brand-new EHR. It wasn’t as simple as where to record a client’s height and weight. The whole client visit workflow would need to alter.
“The example I have actually utilized for this task is attempting to alter out a plane’s engine while it remains in flight,” he continued. “The clients do not stop requiring to be seen even if you are going to alter EHRs. We needed to deal with a strategy to train all personnel, set up brand-new centers in eCW, and move the information from Medent to eCW, all while not disrupting clients’ schedules.”
From the information side, personnel needed to deal with Medent to offer Oak Orchard with all the client information that remained in the EHR. Personnel then needed to supply it to eCW so they might offer Oak Orchard with a map of how the information would be consumed.
“Since the EHRs utilized various terms, this was a painstaking and laborious job, going line by line for each quality from Medent to what it is employed eCW,” Kuder remembered. “Once this part was finished, we then would carry out a test migration in a test environment. We then would go through numerous client charts, making certain the information that might be moved was taken into the appropriate places in eCW.
“While that group was dealing with the information side, there was another group dealing with the training side,” he continued. “We initially began by registering all the personnel of those 3 workplaces into eCW University online classes based upon their function. This permitted them to be able to get a few of the preliminary training when they had offered time.”
Oak Orchard employed a few of its eCW very users to take a trip to the brand-new practice’s websites to supply hands-on training. And it sent out personnel from the Medent websites to Oak Orchard websites to see how eCW works live.
“Once we verified the information looked great which training was done, we prepared for a weekend where we would take the information from Medent and move it into our production environment of eCW,” Kuder discussed. “Staff basically utilized Medent for the last time on a Friday and started utilizing eCW on a Monday. All of this took place without workplaces closing.”
OUTCOMES
Among the significant successes has actually been personnel complete satisfaction. For 3 years, Oak Orchard had actually been replicating work. The front desk personnel in those workplaces now do not need to get in information into 2 EHRs. The financing department does not need to take details out of one EHR and input it into another to get claims out the door.
“On top of that we have actually had the ability to decrease our functional expenses related to this duplication of work,” Kuder reported. “We have actually had the ability to help in reducing personnel burnout since we have actually gotten the versatility with our staffing because we can release them anywhere we require them to be without needing to stress over which EHR is being utilized.
“The shift to eCW has actually permitted us to end up being combined as a system and share details in a more effective style, which eventually conserves time and supplies clients with much better care,” he continued. “We now are talking the very same language and working the exact same treatments and workflows throughout all of our workplaces. This alone has actually permitted us to introduce brand-new services like self-check-in.”
Oak Orchard likewise is now in the procedure of executing kiosks at all of its websites. None of these things would have been possible if it were still on 2 EHRs, Kuder included.
GUIDANCE FOR OTHERS
“If you are ever in an acquisition scenario and you are inducing centers on a various EHR, I would encourage moving those brand-new workplaces to your existing EHR as part of the acquisition,” Kuder stated. “The longer you attempt to keep 2 EHRs, the more difficult it will be to shift. Clients’ experiences will be affected two times rather of simply that one time.
“Plan more time than you believe you require for a job like this,” he continued. “Since the EHR is the No. 1 application for a supplier company, making certain you have actually done all your due diligence will permit a smoother migration.”
When confirming information, get as lots of eyes on it as possible, he included.
“There are numerous various qualities for a single client, and the more individuals you can verify to make certain the information moved properly, the more total the charts will be,” he concluded.
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