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At precisely 12:01 a.m., Saturday, March 31, 2012, health care at St. Francis Hospital and Health Services in Maryville will change.
Dramatically.
"Anything we have from before that is on paper," according to Dr. Michael Wurm, the St. Francis physician who has spearheaded the health-care systems transition from the traditional paper stage into the digital era. "After that, we'll be all electronic.
"Well, not everything," Wurm admitted. "All records that require an actual signature, such as signing a surgical consent form or a Medicare release form, will require an actual signature on paper, but that will be scanned almost immediately into the electronic system."
And even that throwback to older times will disappear in the not-too-distant future, when the necessary technologies are added to the system.
A 15-member transitional training team from the SSM Health Care System, the parent organization for St. Francis and 12 other health care systems in St. Louis and Jefferson City in Missouri, and in Illinois, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, is in Maryville this week working with the local staff to determine various requirements for training involved in the change-over.
Before the March implementation, every staff member will be individually schooled in the operation of their particular portion of the system-wide electronic records system.
Requirements will vary from only a few hours to more than 40, Wurm said.
"Care providers will require at least 12 to 16 hours, and others may need as many as 35 to 40 hours," the doctor said. "It will depend on the person's particular position."
Introduction of the Epic Electronic Health Record system in Maryville culminates a 12-year transitional period to electronic records for the SSM system.
"We began looking at our need for an electronic way to share records in 1999," Wurm said. "Then in 2004, we determined the systems were mature to the point we were ready to make some decisions and a system team spent three days in St. Louis.
"We decided that Epic was the most mature system, and the most capable, at the time, so that was our choice," he said. The original system-wide cost was estimated to be approximately $332 million for the 13 SSM facilities. That total has grown to more than $500 million as the program has been expanded to include enhanced surgery and laboratory capabilities as well as a revenue module.
When Project Bacon, as the conversion project Wurm is leading is known, is completed, St. Francis will move to the "forefront of technological capabilities among MIssouri hospitals," he said.
At precisely 12:01 a.m., Saturday, March 31, 2012, health care at St. Francis Hospital and Health Services in Maryville will change.
Dramatically.
"Anything we have from before that is on paper," according to Dr. Michael Wurm, the St. Francis physician who has spearheaded the health-care systems transition from the traditional paper stage into the digital era. "After that, we'll be all electronic.
"Well, not everything," Wurm admitted. "All records that require an actual signature, such as signing a surgical consent form or a Medicare release form, will require an actual signature on paper, but that will be scanned almost immediately into the electronic system."
And even that throwback to older times will disappear in the not-too-distant future, when the necessary technologies are added to the system.
A 15-member transitional training team from the SSM Health Care System, the parent organization for St. Francis and 12 other health care systems in St. Louis and Jefferson City in Missouri, and in Illinois, Oklahoma and Wisconsin, is in Maryville this week working with the local staff to determine various requirements for training involved in the change-over.
Before the March implementation, every staff member will be individually schooled in the operation of their particular portion of the system-wide electronic records system.
Requirements will vary from only a few hours to more than 40, Wurm said.
"Care providers will require at least 12 to 16 hours, and others may need as many as 35 to 40 hours," the doctor said. "It will depend on the person's particular position."
Introduction of the Epic Electronic Health Record system in Maryville culminates a 12-year transitional period to electronic records for the SSM system.
"We began looking at our need for an electronic way to share records in 1999," Wurm said. "Then in 2004, we determined the systems were mature to the point we were ready to make some decisions and a system team spent three days in St. Louis.
"We decided that Epic was the most mature system, and the most capable, at the time, so that was our choice," he said. The original system-wide cost was estimated to be approximately $332 million for the 13 SSM facilities. That total has grown to more than $500 million as the program has been expanded to include enhanced surgery and laboratory capabilities as well as a revenue module.
When Project Bacon, as the conversion project Wurm is leading is known, is completed, St. Francis will move to the "forefront of technological capabilities among MIssouri hospitals," he said.
There will be more than 220 computer workstations installed throughout the hospital and physicians offices.
Input from those terminals will provide a constant flow of information, both within the Maryville hospital and among area members of the burgeoning Health Information Exchange System across the area.
LACIE, Lewis and Clark Information Exchange initiated by Heartland Health in St. Joseph, was the first information exchange system in the state. It connects Heartland with St. Francis and community hospitals in Albany, Bethany and Mound City. Through that program, the Maryville health community enjoys almost instantaneous contact with St. Luke's Hospital and KU Medical Center in Kansas City. Extensions of that system also connect Maryville with similar information exchange systems headquartered in Columbia and Springfield.
"Through all of this, the paramount driving force has been patient care and safety and privacy of information," Wurm emphasized.
"One of the aspects I am most enthused with is that there is a lot of medical decision-making support built into this system," he said. "It scans documents and culls information necessary to update our medical knowledge. For example, there is a drug-to-drug and drug allergy alert system that will show as individual prescriptions are entered."
Another aspect of the system will be a patient-access feature, My chart, which will be a secure portal that will allow a patient to check lab reports, schedule physicals or take care of other routine medical needs.
"That kind of patient-caregiver integration is the most exciting thing that I see," Wurm said. "It is an exciting stimulation for us to improve our care for people."
