Yuma Sun, June 21, 2011 June 20, 2011 10:14 PM
BY RICHARD ROMERO - SUN STAFF WRITER
YRMC gearing up for electronic records
"Modern technology is in a constant state of change and improvement, but Yuma Regional Medical Center is ahead of the curve. YRMC CEO Pat Walz said that his organization is adapting to the times and is fully behind the recent medical records shift to electronic format.
“We're pretty pro electronic medical records (EMR),” Walz said.
According to Walz, YRMC is in the process of spending $70 million to make the shift from physical records to EMR. Machele Headington, vice president of communications and marketing for YRMC, said the hospital is scheduled to go live with its EMR program May 1, 2012.
“We believe it will really improve quality of care by taking some of the human hand-offs off of the table,” Walz said
Currently, working with medical records is like playing the telephone game, with mistakes being made down the line, Walz said, adding that this method is “risky” for patient's safety. Walz said the EMR program has no handwriting involved and he loves the fast efficiency of the method.
According to Walz, with EMR, YRMC can quickly receive all necessary information on a patient that a physician has noted in the past. “They've got a wealth of information, rather than relying on the patient who has got belly pain,” Walz said.
Melissa Rutela is CEO for the nonprofit Arizona Health-e Connections, a business that ensures that necessary infrastructure is in place so that the privacy and security of records is handled well and that information can be shared by providers electronically rather than by fax or paper.
She said that YRMC would gain several advantages by going electronic.
“When information is in paper form, number one, it really makes it difficult to coordinate care; and when you get information into electronic form, it's much easier to access, it's much easier to ensure that necessary tests are being done, that you're aware of potential medical errors and can prevent them from happening,” Rutela said.
Rutela said the system is set up to increase the quality of care, allowing doctors to view previous medications that a patient has taken, even if it is from another physician.
Rutela added that the system set up to automatically remind providers if certain medical needs need to be met.
“It's kind of smarter technology, if you will, that allows for increases in the quality of care,” Rutela said.
While there is general praise for the new system, Walz forewarned that it would not come without its flaws.
Walz said over 200 different companies sell EMR systems, and with those types of numbers, not all will flow smoothly until standardization is built, or else the benefit of the system is lost.
“What you lose when you have that many competitors is that kind of standardization,” Walz said.
Walz added that the quality of a health record and the safeness is only going to be as good as the company standing behind it.
Walz said YRMC is currently building its system with EPIC, a software company that makes records for mid-sized and larger scale medical groups, according to the company's web page."
Randy’s Part
Randy works on the interfaces for this Epic EHR project. The hospital has many electronic devices that have to connect in with Epic. These 25+ devices all communicate using a standard protocol called HL7.
Randy’s team consists of three “Interface Engineers” and one contractor where 70 new interfaces are needed to support the first phase of the project. There are three phases with additional interfaces needed in each phase.
Randy’s interfaces include sending vaccination records to the State of Arizona, patient vitals (heart rate, respiration, temperature, etc.), nurse alarm system, pharmacy dispensing equipment (robots), surgery scheduling, scanning medical records, and laboratory results. All of these values will now automatically be included with the patient’s record.
Randy is just starting testing with the rest of Epic. He will be doing unit testing (stand-alone) for the next several months after which comes a long 6 month period of integrated testing with all of the system leading up to the “Go Live” in May of next year.
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