Enterprise Content Management streamlines data collection, saves staff time

BY TOM ROMEO

Health Information Management (HIM) professionals deal with hundreds of documents each day. An important role in any health system’s ecosystem, these staff members are tasked with ensuring data is accurate, complete, timely and secure.

While HIM professionals have always been challenged to manage and make sense of data, COVID-19 created unprecedented challenges as medical volumes throughout the last two years fluctuated exponentially. There is no denying the COVID-19 pandemic caused an influx of patients requesting care at hospitals globally; the Canadian Institute for Health Information reported more than 2.7 million acute inpatient hospitalizations throughout Canada from 2020-2021.

Given this volume, combined with the pressure of meeting compliance regulations while managing records and ensuring the completion of patient charts, HIM professionals can’t afford to lose a second – especially as job vacancies within the health sector across Canada reach an all-time high.

Content management: More than ever, HIM professionals need tools that can increase productivity and streamline processes. One important tool is Enterprise Content Management (ECM): by providing 24/7 access to information, clinicians and analysts can view and work on any medical record, at any time, resulting in a significant decrease in chart completion delays.

Additionally, many health systems globally use the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society’s (HIMSS) Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) to assist in measuring clinical outcomes, patient engagement and clinician use of the health system’s electronic health record (EHR) technology.

This system helps strengthen organizational performance and health outcomes across patient populations.

When used to its fullest potential, HIMSS’ EMRAM can help improve patient safety and satisfaction, secure data and support busy clinicians. However, hospitals often wind up stalled close to the program’s completion, as Stage 7 of the process mandates that an organization does not use paper charts to deliver and manage patient care, with all data electronically entered within 24 hours.

This can be a challenging step for health systems. Out of thousands of providers globally, only 329 facilities have reached this phase.

However, reaching this part of the process comes with significant benefits: a recent study showed that achieving Stage 7’s status significantly elevated physician satisfaction levels.

In addition, by providing access to data and critical information when and where it’s needed, clinicians can improve patient security and meaningfully engage with patients and clinicians to reduce the risk of errors in care delivery and strengthen the patient experience.

While many organizations stall as efforts to meet the 24-hour turnaround time prove more challenging than anticipated, certain integrations can help organizations on their investment in this area was St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton (SJHH), based in Hamilton, Ontario. manage critical deadlines with systems and features they may already have.

Together with a team from Quest Diagnostics, SJHH worked to use solutions provided through Quest’s Quanum Enterprise Content Solutions (ECS) to capture and index metadata for a variety of documents. After just two months, the SJHH team began using the new setup, and information started to flow directly into Quanum Enterprise Content Solutions from the Epic EHR.

Less than one year after deploying the system, SJHH reported over 1,347 hours of administrative staff time saved and more than 500 hours of nursing staff time saved in less than one year.

These integrations can enhance efficiency and make the most of crunched resources. Health systems cannot afford to have limited staff bogged down by information delays and chart completion – especially when each of these tasks can be alleviated with an electronic content management system that optimizes the flow of information.

System integration at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton: Implementing a content management solution can save a health system thousands of hours. One health system that saw a significant return

Volumes of Ocean eReferrals, a streamlined electronic referral, and their attachments increased significantly. Vitals monitoring also showed significant time saved, as more than 5,800 instances were uploaded automatically over 11 months, freeing time for providers to attend to more urgent requests.

Additionally, by working with the team at Quest to customize a solution that fit its collaborative needs, SJHH deployed a scan acquisition tool allowing clinical units to conduct point of care scanning directly into Quanum ECS.

With clinicians now empowered to