How to Increase EMR Adoption & Save Clinicians Time
Sponsored by an educational grant from Aventura
As hospital beds fill up and more patients are admitted, hospital staff is oftentimes bogged down with documentation, perhaps jeopardizing time spent with patients. How can this be remedied?
With the help of a roaming desktop solution and architectural framework, Georgetown Hospital System in South Carolina has enhanced patient care by making patient data more accessible. It has both reduced the time clinicians spend at the computer, and made that time more useful and productive. Staff at Georgetown—a two-hospital system that includes the 131-bed Georgetown Memorial Hospital and the 167-bed Waccamaw Community Hospital—was looking for a single solution to improve productivity and meet HIPAA requirements. Additionally, like most hospitals, Georgetown faced budgetary concerns, which forced staff to look for strategies to help shave costs, especially costs associated with its ongoing PC refresh cycle.
With the help of Aventura's context aware roaming desktop solution, Georgetown got more than it bargained for. Aventura's architectural framework organizes and manages the hospital's back-end systems, making them accessible to the front end-user, and allowing Georgetown to put the patient back in patient care.
The brain of the operation? Aventura's Enterprise Operating Framework unites hospital systems such as EMRs, PACS and printers, to create a user-friendly, single sign-on system for the front-end user.
"The solution has helped to significantly decrease the time spent logging onto desktops and applications," says Teresa Davis, RN, manager of clinical informatics at Georgetown. "It has untethered the staff from the PC at the nurses' station, allowing them to roam freely around the hospital."
A nurse can now login, pull up pertinent patient information on the PC at the nurses' station, then logout, walk down the hall to another PC and pull up the very same screen he or she just left behind, says Lynn Griffith, manager of infrastructure/help desk at Georgetown.
Nurses at Georgetown gain speedy access to relevant applications, such as the EMR, just by sliding a card and entering a password. "Through this simple operation, the nurse can bring up the necessary patient information and then have the option to quickly move to another station and view that same screen," Griffith says.
Here's one example of what the system permits. Should a nurse receive a phone call from a doctor on a noisy floor, he or she can remove the card from the PC, step to another area, take the doctor's call and pull up the same patient information he or she pulled up on the previous PC.
The solution works as the nervous system of the hospital, connecting various systems on the back-end, and using "context awareness" to update roaming sessions depending on users' needs and whereabouts.
Nurses at Georgetown estimate that the technology returns an hour a day. That hour, they have found, represents time that can be devoted more directly to patients. "An indirect effect of Aventura is more face-to-face patient time," Davis says, "because less time is spent logging in and out of the EMR." Nurses no longer lose patient documentation when mobile carts lose connectivity, and documentation can be completed in real time at the point-of-care rather than the end of a shift.
Along with increasing clinician productivity and staff satisfaction, the AV Dynamic Print Router feature takes the guessing game out of nurses having to identify which printer is closest.
"Previously, nurses would print out their rounds report and didn't know which printer to select," Davis says. "With the print-mapping tool, this problem is eliminated. The technology intelligently reroutes print jobs from any computer to the nearest printer."
"Aventura gave us a dual factor security system," says CIO Frank Scafidi. With Georgetown's HIPAA HITECH audit just around the corner, he says he is confident the health system will consistently meet the security requirements of HIPAA and HITECH.
The advantages of virtualization
Scafidi also points out that the Aventura virtual desktop framework allows the hospital to retain its current computer networks despite their age. He expects Georgetown to save nearly $3 million over the next 10 years through an extension of the PC refresh cycle, and additional funds through the purchase of enterprise-wide licenses rather than individual licenses for each computer in the system.
So how much time does it take to conquer dynamic roaming session and swift sign on? Just a couple of minutes, Griffith responds. Once an end-user participates in a demonstration of how the system works and gets a sign-on card registered, it is a simple process to get up and running, she says. Georgetown selected a power user in each department in case questions arise.
"Because the solution runs on a high-powered server, the thin clients are much faster than a desktop PC," Scafidi says. "It is a great answer for busy healthcare organizations that have staff logging in and out from one computer to another and need their sessions to follow [them]."
"It's been a great move for our organization," Griffith notes. "Our staff satisfaction has skyrocketed and now nurses are able to spend more time doing what they do best—providing quality patient care."
As hospital beds fill up and more patients are admitted, hospital staff is oftentimes bogged down with documentation, perhaps jeopardizing time spent with patients. How can this be remedied?
With the help of a roaming desktop solution and architectural framework, Georgetown Hospital System in South Carolina has enhanced patient care by making patient data more accessible. It has both reduced the time clinicians spend at the computer, and made that time more useful and productive. Staff at Georgetown—a two-hospital system that includes the 131-bed Georgetown Memorial Hospital and the 167-bed Waccamaw Community Hospital—was looking for a single solution to improve productivity and meet HIPAA requirements. Additionally, like most hospitals, Georgetown faced budgetary concerns, which forced staff to look for strategies to help shave costs, especially costs associated with its ongoing PC refresh cycle.
With the help of Aventura's context aware roaming desktop solution, Georgetown got more than it bargained for. Aventura's architectural framework organizes and manages the hospital's back-end systems, making them accessible to the front end-user, and allowing Georgetown to put the patient back in patient care.
Centralizing data, getting connected
It is estimated that hospital nurses access patient data 70 times per day for documentation and patient care purposes. The simple process of logging in and out of the hospital PC to sift through data and document care has become a significant time drain. With Aventura's centralized desktop management platform, staff can create a personalized computing interface, and can sign in and access their own computing sessions and applications within five seconds of arrival at a locked computer with a simple swipe of either a smart card or a proximity card. Dual-factor authentication eliminates most security anxieties.The brain of the operation? Aventura's Enterprise Operating Framework unites hospital systems such as EMRs, PACS and printers, to create a user-friendly, single sign-on system for the front-end user.
"The solution has helped to significantly decrease the time spent logging onto desktops and applications," says Teresa Davis, RN, manager of clinical informatics at Georgetown. "It has untethered the staff from the PC at the nurses' station, allowing them to roam freely around the hospital."
A nurse can now login, pull up pertinent patient information on the PC at the nurses' station, then logout, walk down the hall to another PC and pull up the very same screen he or she just left behind, says Lynn Griffith, manager of infrastructure/help desk at Georgetown.
Nurses at Georgetown gain speedy access to relevant applications, such as the EMR, just by sliding a card and entering a password. "Through this simple operation, the nurse can bring up the necessary patient information and then have the option to quickly move to another station and view that same screen," Griffith says.
Here's one example of what the system permits. Should a nurse receive a phone call from a doctor on a noisy floor, he or she can remove the card from the PC, step to another area, take the doctor's call and pull up the same patient information he or she pulled up on the previous PC.
The solution works as the nervous system of the hospital, connecting various systems on the back-end, and using "context awareness" to update roaming sessions depending on users' needs and whereabouts.
Nurses at Georgetown estimate that the technology returns an hour a day. That hour, they have found, represents time that can be devoted more directly to patients. "An indirect effect of Aventura is more face-to-face patient time," Davis says, "because less time is spent logging in and out of the EMR." Nurses no longer lose patient documentation when mobile carts lose connectivity, and documentation can be completed in real time at the point-of-care rather than the end of a shift.
Along with increasing clinician productivity and staff satisfaction, the AV Dynamic Print Router feature takes the guessing game out of nurses having to identify which printer is closest.
"Previously, nurses would print out their rounds report and didn't know which printer to select," Davis says. "With the print-mapping tool, this problem is eliminated. The technology intelligently reroutes print jobs from any computer to the nearest printer."
Overcoming the challenge of HIPAA requirements
For Georgetown, ensuring the facility was wired to meet HIPAA Security Rule requirements was a major concern. Previously, the nurses' station kiosk housed computers that multiple users accessed without the need to login and out, leaving patient data vulnerable to exposure. Under the HIPAA Security Rule, hospitals are required to protect patients' electronic health information with safeguards that ensure both physical and data confidentiality and security."Aventura gave us a dual factor security system," says CIO Frank Scafidi. With Georgetown's HIPAA HITECH audit just around the corner, he says he is confident the health system will consistently meet the security requirements of HIPAA and HITECH.
The advantages of virtualization
Scafidi also points out that the Aventura virtual desktop framework allows the hospital to retain its current computer networks despite their age. He expects Georgetown to save nearly $3 million over the next 10 years through an extension of the PC refresh cycle, and additional funds through the purchase of enterprise-wide licenses rather than individual licenses for each computer in the system.
Rolling out the virtualization framework
The bundled virtualization package was instated as a pilot program throughout Georgetown's nursing units during the go-live period, the same time as the hospital was undergoing an HIS upgrade (Meditech version 5.5 to Meditech 6.0). "We didn't go 'big-bang' and rollout the system all at once throughout each of our facilities," Scafidi says. "We had a much greater acceptance and adoption of Meditech 6.0 by our clinicians where Aventura was deployed." After receiving rave reviews from staff on the system's ease of use, however, he says if he had it to do over again, he would have deployed it throughout the hospital during the initial development phase.So how much time does it take to conquer dynamic roaming session and swift sign on? Just a couple of minutes, Griffith responds. Once an end-user participates in a demonstration of how the system works and gets a sign-on card registered, it is a simple process to get up and running, she says. Georgetown selected a power user in each department in case questions arise.
"Because the solution runs on a high-powered server, the thin clients are much faster than a desktop PC," Scafidi says. "It is a great answer for busy healthcare organizations that have staff logging in and out from one computer to another and need their sessions to follow [them]."
"It's been a great move for our organization," Griffith notes. "Our staff satisfaction has skyrocketed and now nurses are able to spend more time doing what they do best—providing quality patient care."