Faith Community Hospital Joins Meaningful Use Trailblazers
Faith Community Hospital recently joined the ranks of a select group. The 41-bed provider attested to the meaningful use of electronic health records, becoming one of only 100 hospitals to do so as of the end of July, according to a report from the Health IT Policy Committee, an industry group that works with the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC-HIT).
The Jacksboro, Texas-based hospital is leveraging the ChartAccess® Comprehensive EHR from Prognosis to quickly tap into the clinical and operational benefits associated with such technology – and to reap the financial rewards emanating from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. With the contract signed in October of 2010, Faith began implementation in January of 2011, went live in March and then attested on June 5 – and has already received its share of the $27 billion available under the EHR incentive fund. Only 66 hospitals had received incentive monies by the end of July. Many other hospitals that have already attested have had EHRs up and running for several years.
“I give a lot of credit to my staff for understanding the urgency and making sure the EHR was implemented in the time frame set forth,” said Frank L. Beaman, CEO at Faith Community. “Prognosis was also a big help as their staff members took part in every weekly user group meeting and worked hand-in-hand with us every step of the way.”
To qualify under the Medicare program, Faith demonstrated 90 consecutive days of meaningful use of certified EHR technology through the submission of data for 14 mandatory core set objectives and five out of 10 menu set objectives as well as required clinical quality measures via the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Attestation System.
To achieve this feat, Faith relied on the Prognosis EHR to overcome the cost, speed of implementation, and usability obstacles commonly cited as impediments to electronic records success. A shared web-native EHR system delivered via a “cloud computing” model, ChartAccess software applications are made available as a service over an encrypted health information network. Intuitive and easy-to-use, the system offers built in analytics and health information exchange (HIE) capabilities, which can help hospitals provide consistent, high-quality patient care.
A meaningful use dashboard in the ChartAccess system enabled Faith to easily monitor progress in relation to required meaningful use measures. On-going technical and operational support from Prognosis made it possible for Faith to quickly realize the government’s Stage 1 requirements.
“The concept of electronic health records makes great sense for the future of medicine. The details involved with implementing EHRs, however, can be highly complicated and hospitals face the challenge of clearing all the hurdles before they can start to tap into the clinical and operational benefits,” Beaman said. “That is why this is such a significant achievement for our hospital.”
The Prognosis EHR serves as the hub of Faith Community’s computerization initiatives. The solution is interfaced with a billing system, which makes it possible to seamlessly connect clinical and financial data, as well as an outpatient clinical system, which enables physicians to seamlessly tap into and share information generated in their ambulatory facilities.
“Our technology is making it possible for community hospitals to challenge the commonly held assumption that it takes years to get a comprehensive information technology initiative up and running. We have had several hospitals leverage our innovative web-native application in the cloud to go from project kick off to go live in less than 120 days – and then to optimize the use of the system to meet Stage 1 meaningful use requirements,” said Ramsey Evans, CEO of Prognosis. “In addition, because our system is so flexible, organizations are finding it easy to experience even greater efficiencies and enhanced care by leveraging connectivity across the enterprise.”
About Prognosis Health Information Systems
Prognosis Health Information Systems, Inc., Houston, aims to improve the quality and safety of patient care through ChartAccess, a certified Comprehensive EHR. Designed to be fully operational in less than six months at a predictable, affordable cost, the solution enables hospitals to meet meaningful use and improve patient outcomes by leveraging built-in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) milestone and quality measure tracking functionality. PHIS uses 21st-Century technologies to offer small community hospitals a pure browser-based system that can run on-premise or in the cloud. For more information, go to www.prognosishis.com.