Nextgen Healthcare

In the 21st century and most everything has become computerized in the effort to embrace technology. NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, LLC provides Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and financial solutions for hospitals, health systems, physician practices and patient information storage. The following is a proposal for integrating NextGen software within Grace Hospital’s 200 bed facility and four clinics that are dispersed within the community. Comment by Angela: Please site where you retrieved this information from

1.1 Abstract

EMR is a software program used to store patient information within the healthcare setting and has replaced the need for paper. EMR has been proven to be incredibly useful to medical providers and staff, as it is extremely efficient and consumes less time when documenting patient information. Grace Hospital has a capacity of 200 inpatients and 30 primary care physicians and the paperwork has a tendency to be overwhelming. For example, medical records on a single patient with a chronic disease, over the course of five years, will most likely have an unorganized chart as thick as a phone book and consume vast time and effort of the medical staff. Another great advantage of using NextGen EMR is the improved workflow. NextGen has notably simplified the process of the patient workflow, from patient registration, to treatment and to discharge (Carter, 2001).

NextGen is also remarkably known for saving the provider time and accuracy of the patient documentation process and has simplified specialty practice documentation, such as cardiology, by the use of specific templates geared towards each specific specialty. NextGen can also be customized to suit the needs of the user. For example, if a pediatrician uses the same phrase for a healthy well child check, instead of typing out the phrase each time, the physician can create a template where the phrase can be automatically inserted at the touch of a button. Comment by Angela: Please site where you retrieved this information from

With no two healthcare institutions being the same, NextGen is designed to be used in different circumstances in regards the size and capacity. NextGen can be used in a small rural clinic to a large multi-bed hospital. All the more, access to NextGen is not a concern, as a physician has the ability to access the patient chart from anywhere, as long as they have access to the internet. This is especially convenient for physicians that may be on call or working from home. NextGen has truly created a fool proof system that is easy to learn and does not require a great deal of man power to maintain it. Comment by Angela: Please site where you retrieved this information from

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1.2 Introduction

Implementing an EMR system is vital for Grace Hospital, for the reason that it will greatly reduce human errors. Manual record keeping for a large hospital such as ours requires a great deal of man power, which greatly increases the potential for human errors. From a risk standpoint, human errors can lead to an increased incidence of medical malpractice, potentially costing an institution millions of dollars. NextGen has created a system that greatly reduces medical charting errors and is preferred from most risk management attorneys. Comment by Angela: Please site where you retrieved this information from

NextGen is also Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) compliant as it takes safeguards to protect patient information. NextGen is password protected and requires the user to change their password every 90 days. Additionally, every user action within NextGen is logged and traceable, creating a safe and secure record, thus reducing the chances for unauthorized persons to thumb through a medical record. In general, records within NextGen are stored in and protected and can be accessed up to 20 years (Gartee, 2007).

Through EMR NextGen has made it possible for hospitals and the affiliated clinics improve patients care and solve financial problems. NextGen has even created a process to send orders and prescriptions electronically to the lab and pharmacy. Comment by Angela: Please site where you retrieved this information from

1.3 Background

Grace Hospital has been successfully operating for decades and as the Information Technology (IT) Manager, we would like senior leadership to consider implementing NextGen software within the hospital operations. Currently, our hospital has managed to maintain paper charting and in the last 7 years, Grace Hospital has had an astonishing loss of more than 15 million dollars due to medical errors.

With the implementation of NextGen Healthcare Information Systems, Grace Hospital will save needed space from the removal of paper charts. Lost charts will be non-existent and charting will be uploaded in real time. In addition, coding errors will be reduced and the billing to insurances will be sent more efficiently resulting in a faster turnaround of reimbursement.

1.4 Statement of Need

Grace Hospital’s current capacity is 200 patients with 30 primary care physicians and four clinics distributed in the community. Grace Hospital is based in the inner city streets of Phoenix, Arizona and is well known for handling countless emergency cases that require round the clock attention. With paper charting, the amount of detail needed for complex cases can be overwhelming for our staff to handle by using a single handheld paper patient chart. Even more, the physicians must dictate their SOAP (subjective, objective, assessment, and plan) notes which are not a part of the record until the transcriber can manually type the document, which can take up to a week or more. With no immediate information available for a physician, the probability of errors increases. With the help of NextGen Healthcare all these concerns would be non-existent. Comment by Angela: Please site source where you retrieved this knowledge

1.5 Project Goals and Objectives

The projects major goals and objectives are to use NextGen Healthcare systems to provide quality, collaborative and coordinated healthcare. One goal of Grace Hospital is to connect patients and health communities on their preferred platform, anywhere and at any given time (Levison, 2008). A major benefit of NextGen is that the information is uploaded immediately and visible to all who have the chart open in real time. This means that if the physician is documenting and the patient is being taken to imaging, the imaging tech would have all the information needed immediately at his fingertips. NextGen will help Grace Hospital to increase its revenue by reduced billing errors and will be able to efficiently follow the healthcare reform rules. NextGen will also help Grace Hospital with providing value based medicine. Comment by Angela: Please site source where you retrieved this knowledge

1.6 Methodology

NextGen Healthcare facilities offers physician training which will be an appropriate method in reaching our goals and objectives. Additionally, by having our IT team become NextGen certified, this will ensure that we can overcome any technical obstacles that may come our way and reduce downtime. Furthermore, NextGen is constantly staying anew with current technology. The newest technological advances from NextGen are a pen like gadget that allows a physician to collect information from a patient. The pen like gadget works by having the physician tap on the pen while dictating the patient information into the micro speakers, in which he will immediately receive an audio response from the patient. This new technology would allow the patient to be treated without coming into the office. With NextGen’s technological advances, Grace Hospital could stay atop of providing efficient and quality patient care. Comment by Angela: Please site source where you retrieved this knowledge

1.7 Time Frame

The NextGen and Grace Hospital project has a projected implementation time of six months from February 25, 2014 to August 25, 2014. The six month allotted time frame is sufficient time for the installation of equipment and staff training. Training of the NextGen Healthcare system in general, takes approximately three-five days to train physicians. Grace Hospital has 30 physicians that would require to be trained in groups of three, over the course of three weeks. Comment by Angela: Please site source where you retrieved this knowledge

Additionally, some space requirements for main equipment will need to be logistically considered, e.g. desktops/workstation for doctors, nurses and other clinicians/users. Some extra attention will need to be focused around physician training around the integration of EMR with any current electronic data sources (imaging, laboratory, dictation, billing, quality software systems).

1.8 Milestones

Grace Hospital is already behind with the rollout of transferring our charting system to an EMR system, when considering that most of our neighboring hospitals have been using an EMR for a few years. Grace Hospital has a great working relationship with the surrounding hospitals and we have sought advice from 10 other hospitals about the efficiency of the system, all are in agreement as to the high efficiency and incredible workflow, the EMR has generated within their hospital system. NextGen Healthcare Systems is able to provide the equipment needed to launch the services from the ground up. Comment by Angela: Please site source where you retrieved this knowledge

1.9 Utilization

The results of the NextGen project will assist Grace Hospital in offering the very best medical services to our community. Our patients will also be able to actively participate in their treatment by having the option to view their medical charts securely online and book appointments. NextGen Healthcare Systems will assist in making house calls more efficient by having the patient information available via laptop. Furthermore, consultations amongst physicians on a particular patient can be handled via conference call while viewing the chart simultaneously, saving both time and money. Further cost savings from the reduction of paperwork in our hospital and clinics will be noticeable, as NextGen has the option to fax directly within the EMR system. All patient chart information will be a mouse click away. Comment by Angela: Please site source where you retrieved this knowledge

1.10 Literature of Review

NextGen Healthcare Systems has ensured Grace Hospital that their EMR system will make the work of delivering medical services, easy and efficient to both provider and patient. With the encryption of patient charts, NextGen has thought of the security of patient information and streamlined the process of protecting all data. Even more, each staff will have their own username and encrypted password to ensure security measures. Comment by Angela: Please site source where you retrieved this knowledge

A plan will need to be launched to notify the current patients of the conversion of the EMR system, from paper charts, by sending mass emails, posting the information within our hospital and sending patient letters via mail. Additionally, all staff members will ensure all patients that are being registered will be notified of the upcoming project. Comment by Angela: Please site source where you retrieved this knowledge

1.11 Personnel

NextGen Healthcare Systems offers physician and support staff training at a reasonable price. The physician and medical staff will have access to the paper charts when the system is launched. All paper charting will be scanned into NextGen and will be easily accessible and broken down by department and dates. A pilot study was launched within Grace Hospital for a 4 month time frame; where 5 physicians, 3 Registered Nurses and 4 Registration staff have used a trial version. The feedback provided from the personnel was all in alignment for moving to an EMR system. The EMR system has enabled each member in the pilot study to work more efficiently with minimal errors.

1.12 Appendices

NextGen Healthcare Systems has taken EMR and raised the bar. The implementation of the NextGen quality services will only improve our medical institution by reducing human errors, securing patient charts, improving efficiency, improving the quality of medical staff documentation, reduce paper waste, reducing billing/coding errors and ensure timely billing. Comment by Angela: Please site source where you retrieved this knowledge

References

Carter, H. J. (2001). Electronic Medical Records: A Guide for Clinicians and Administrators, McGraw Hill: New York.

Gartee, R. (2007). Electronic Health Records: Understanding and Using Computerized Medical Records, Doubleday Books Publishers.

Levison, R. S. (2008). Practical EHR: Electronic Record Solutions for Compliance and Quality Care, Colombia Publishers.