Solutions in Technology

Lower costs and increase efficiency by streamlining practices

Health information technology (IT) allows comprehensive management of medical information and, according to the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN), it is the perfect platform for the secure exchange of information between healthcare consumers and providers.

It is no secret that the use of IT in healthcare can improve healthcare quality, help to prevent medical errors, help in reduction of healthcare costs, increase administrative efficiencies and decrease paperwork. It helps to streamline overall business practices, and interoperable health IT also helps the bottom line.

Ask yourself: “What would $64,000 in savings do to our net income?” Jeff Blankenship, president of Surgical Notes, says it’s a no-brainer. He says the use of IT “cuts costs and increases integrity of data.” He notes that the human error element often is deleted from the equation and often, IT works to eliminate staff hours too.

Blankenship’s company offers a virtual medical records application called VMR Express. VMR Express is compatible with any practice management (PM) software or application, and includes a scheduling module and an extensive chart preparation and management module.

The chart preparation facet was developed to save employee time and streamline all patient documents. The module helps to insure all patient demographics are included such as HIPPA forms and legal waivers. In addition, it pulls from a database to ensure all specific forms by case, insurance company or physician, are completed. The chart then is assigned a barcode identifier, and the whole thing is an exact image of the paper chart.

This eliminates waste, is a solution to reduce FTE overhead, automates practices and is a solution for document imaging and storage, Blankenship points out.

“What I foresee is tremendous savings,” asserts Faris Zureikat, MBA, CASC, administrator of Dallas-based North Texas Surgery Center, who has worked with Surgical Notes since 2005. “I’ve spent countless hours with various people examining the options. It’s something that’s well thought out. With this solution, the technology is there, all you have to do is get the right software to make the solution viable, profitable and efficient. I truly believe they (Surgical Notes) have the solution” 

He continues, “I did a little study of how much human effort we put into putting a chart together. In my facility, it’s between $11 and $15 per chart. Now, in a day, if you do 30 cases — or 40 or 50 — that’s a lot of money to spend on putting charts together, coding them, etc. It’s labor intensive. With this solution, assembling the charts would take literally a minute.”

Zureikat says the solution also helps material managers in inventory control because it helps them to operate more efficiently, thus saving money.

Zureikat says he also minimized the cost of storage because these are electronically stored, encrypted, safe, and would be at instant recall. “People don’t realize how an efficient system can streamline operations at a company,” he asserts.

The bottom line is the savings: the $16/day charge equates to reduced daily employee time and clean claims. “We’re just trying to provide a solution to cut their overhead,” Blankenship says. “We grow together through technology and service.” 

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