Project InfoCare

Project Details -
Completed

The purpose of this project was to extend and expand an existing community-wide EMR. Citizens Memorial Hospital (CMH) is an acute care hospital located in rural southwest Missouri. CMH joined with partners, including an independent physician practice, long term care facilities, cancer center, nursing school and public health departments to implement the following: the EMR in 15 physician offices; the EMR in the CMH Emergency Department; bedside barcoding of medications; and linked clinical decision support. Data were collected from the EMR system to assess productivity and financial impacts as well as adoption rates for new functionality. As a result, CMH was recognized with three awards validating the success of the project. The CMH physician clinics experienced a significant improvement in net income per encounter within six months of implementation. In addition, the following results were seen: over 90 percent of orders placed in the CMH Emergency Department are placed directly by a physician or nurse practitioner; 2.38 times per day, a medication alert is honored (i.e., the order is changed or erased as a result of the alert), but over 90 percent of alerts are currently ignored (i.e., overridden); and for six of seven facilities with medication barcoding implemented, over 85 percent of medications are consistently scanned prior to administration.