This case study outlines and discusses KMG’s achievements in implementing various
MEDITECH based applications for multiple hospitals consisting of thousands of
physicians, nurses and supporting staff providing medical care, outpatient services,
and extensive community health education and screening programs.
Case Study
MEDITECH Related Applications
Healthcare professionals and organizations around the world recognize the potential and importance of information technology in enhancing patient care and the overall healthcare outcomes. Today integration of information technology in healthcare is not a luxury but a necessity. Patients are getting more involved in their well-being and demanding better care. Hospitals and providers must keep up with the ever evolving health care reforms.
The programme involved complexity in terms of integrating various applications into the hospital
management system in an effort to facilitate their day-to-day workflow and enhance patient care.
With multiple departments involved in a single function in many ways, it was crucial to have integral
systems to organize processes and perform accountability and notification related functions.
The objective, however, was also to improve cross-departmental communication, better
coordination of care, and provide an automated mechanism that facilitates various activities
pertaining to the overall hospital operations.
1. Notification System
The challenge
There are various ways of notifying a clinician.
Paging is one of the most traditional ways. But
paging sometimes incurs excessive labour and
inefficiency. Moreover, valuable time is
wasted. Today, whether in clinics or in
hospitals, fast and efficient communication is
an absolute necessity. Our client needed a
comprehensive notification system in order to
manage alerts and notify the right people on
the basis of their alert preferences.
The challenge
There are various ways of notifying a clinician.
Paging is one of the most traditional ways. But
paging sometimes incurs excessive labour and
inefficiency. Moreover, valuable time is
wasted. Today, whether in clinics or in
hospitals, fast and efficient communication is
an absolute necessity. Our client needed a
comprehensive notification system in order to
manage alerts and notify the right people on
the basis of their alert preferences.
The solution
KMG built a notification system that helped in
automating and managing alerts to reach the
right people based on their alert preference i.e.
Desktop, Email, or Mobile. As a result, the
system enabled:
Automatic escalations in case of response
failure
Ability to identify and reach the physician
promptly
Flexibility in devices to receive the alerts
More streamlined coordination resulting in
enhanced patient care
2. Bed Tracking
The challenge
In hospitals, bed tracking is a crucial process
involving time tracking, management and
allocation of beds to another patient as soon as
the previous patient is discharged. In leading
hospitals it is imperative to maintain high
occupancy.
Due to lack of coordination and time between
patient bed turnovers, only a small percentage of
hospitals are able to effectively manage their
patient flow processes. Many hospitals report of
the following issues with their system:
Bed tracking applications are too expensive
Training takes too much time
Little or no innovation in current products
Platform restrictions and non-integrations
with other applications
Little or no flexibility
Can’t address new issues
The benefits
The application can be seamlessly integrated into
the hospital’s existing management system and
perform the following the functions:
Tracking of time taken by each department/
person throughout the turnover process
Provide status of the process in real-time
Email and Desktop notifications to concerned
department/ persons
Better communication and coordination
Enable assessment of performance metrics
based on turnover times
Reduced wait time for patients
Increased effectiveness in providing patient
Admittance and Discharge services
The solution
KMG Bed Tracking is a systematic tool that aids
in tracking the time taken from the moment a
physician discharges a patient until the time the
bed is allocated to the next occupant. In
between the changes, the application tracks and
notifies the concerned person/ department in
real-time regarding the status of the bed. This
results in enhanced coordination and more
streamlined communication between the
different departments involved in the process.
The benefits
KMG's hospital notification system improves quality and operations by timely notifying doctors and staff
regarding any critical situation that requires their attention. Doctors are able to respond more rapidly
and provide better care to patients without internal communication lags. The system is also equipped to
notify appropriate persons/ departments in cases where patients are re-admitted because of a
previously treated disorder. As a result, the physician conducts a thorough check on the previous
practices, medication administered to the patient and take corrective action.
3. NPR Reports
The challenge Over 50% of hospitals in U.S. employ MEDITECH applications to help them carry out a wide spectrum of operational, clinical, and financial activities within the hospital. But in order to extract data from MEDITECH, a Non-Procedural Representation (NPR) report needs to be written that accesses data from individual MEDITECH modules. These customized reports are generated through the existing databases of patient information and accounts through the MEDITECH interface. Healthcare providers realized the need for a versatile report generation tool in order to utilize the rich collection of information captured within MEDITECH. Another obstacle is the need to write cumbersome and time consuming NPR reports in order to gain access to MEDITECH data.
The solution KMG has expertise in providing NPR reports and custom programming services. KMG helps providers in accessing the data needed from MEDITECH HIS and generate effective reports that meet the special requirements of healthcare organizations. KMG enables providers with the ability to output data in a variety of formats such as:
On Screen Reports
Download Reports
Printable Reports
The benefits
NPR or Non-Procedural Representation tool allows MEDITECH programmers to represent procedures
using pictures, which it then translates into MAGIC code. The NPR reports help hospital administrators
evaluate their current systems and find areas for improvement or cutbacks. A health IT professional
familiar with the MEDITECH NPR options can generate reports utilizing specific selection criteria, indexes,
and custom logic—all of which can be adjusted to suit departmental and entire organization needs.
4. Fall & Ulcer Risk Assessment
The challenge
Ulcers and fall risks are quite common issues,
particularly among people who are elderly or
physically impaired. In addition to patient
suffering, these can impede patients’ return to
full functioning and can add to the length of
hospitalization. The length of hospitalizations
for people who have fallen or have pressure
ulcer issues is nearly three times longer than
hospitalizations without diagnosis of the same.
Although prevention and care for improving
patient fall related injuries and pressure ulcers
is quite confusing, caretakers need quality
improvement reports, and visual representation
of evidences, to help them deliver better
patient care and predict and prevent situations
that cause fall and ulcer related issues. A list of
standard interventions and precautionary
measures must also be taken in case of ulcer
related patients.
The solution
To address such concerns, KMG developed an
application that automated Fall & Ulcer risk
decision making process and supports clinicians
and nurses in tailoring prevention interventions
based on patient characteristics and needs.
The application is used to calculate fall and ulcer
risks and generates a visual report that makes it
easier for healthcare professionals to prescribe
recommended interventions based on several
strategies and the risk score of the patient.
The application is also capable of tracking
whether the various interventions prescribed for
the patient are being administered or not. In
case of any issue, the application will
automatically trigger an email/ desktop
notification to the concerned persons so that
corrective actions can be taken.
The benefits The application helps in assessing and evaluating identified fall and ulcer risk factors in patients. Correctly identifying risk factors helps the hospital staff in implementing the required preventive care interventions, including additional support and care. The staff can thus take all measures to prevent any damage to the patient.
5. Critical Test Tracking
The challenge
Some tests require special preparation. In case
of critical tests, a lot depends on how quickly
the results come out so that the patient can be
administered the right treatment as soon as
possible. And it is critical that the test
procedure be carried out uninterruptedly and a
complete tracking mechanism is available to be
able to track its status.
Our client needed strongly needed an
application that not only prevented the critical
result from being delayed or lost but also
improve patient safety and properly track the
delivery of the results.
The solution
Critical Tests Tracking application tracks the
time taken for critical test results from the
time the test is ordered by a healthcare
professional (doctor, surgeon) till it is delivered
back to them by the testing/ laboratory
personnel.
Apart from tracking the status of the tests, it also
timely notifies the ordering clinician on email or
desktop regarding the completion of the test. It
significantly reduces costs and saves valuable
time, speeding patient health.
The benefits
The numerous benefits of Critical Test
Tracking application are:
Measurably enhances patient safety
and satisfaction
Ensures reliability of reporting and
notifies concerned personnel to act
promptly when issues arise
Ensures critical test results are reliably
communicated between ordering
clinician and laboratory personnel
6. Purchase Authorization Approval System
The challenge
A few problems for most organizations
without an integrated Purchase
Authorization Approval System are
control, issuing and monitoring of
purchase orders and associated
documentation. Many still operate
such activities manually causing
delays, lags and sometimes incorrect
orders and payments.
The solution
KMG’s Purchase Authorization
Approval System helps organizations
automate and streamline their entire
approval related processes. By
integrating the application into their
existing platform, organizations gain
the extra edge over managing all
approval related functions. The system
also helps in identifying areas for
improvements, saving a significant
amount of time.
The benefits
The application delivers a complete solution that manages the approval process from the minute the
request is raised until it has been released. The application addresses 5 different areas pertaining to the
approval process:
Purchase Requisition
Travel Reimbursements
Check Requisition
Payroll Disbursement
Capital Acquisition
7. Budget Planning & Monitoring System
The challenge
One of the major challenges confronting
today’s hospitals is to bridge the gap between
the cost of providing quality and staying
competitive in terms of technological
implementation. Bottom-line pressures and
various patient reimbursements are unable to
keep pace with the actual costs of care. As a
result, healthcare organizations require
budget planning tools. A hospital or provider
also requires the involvement of all of its
departments and programs during the
budgeting cycle.
The benefits
KMG provides Budget Planning &
Monitoring System to its clients to
strategically analyze and plan out budgeting
and monitoring related functions. The
application was divided into 3 different
modules, each addressing its respective area
of operations.
OTPS (Other than Professional Services)
– This module manages and allocates
budgeting related processes for
contract–based professionals working at
the hospital
The solution
To address these challenges, KMG developed a
hospital Budget Planning & Monitoring System
to assist hospital administrators in structuring,
planning and monitoring budget to achieve
optimal allocation of hospital resources and
services. The application can seamlessly be
integrated into the existing hospital
management system. Through KMG’s Budget
& Planning Monitoring System, each
department and program can submit the
necessary information. This not only creates
transparency and departmental accountability,
but also allows each department to oversee its
portion of the budget.
Capital Budget – Used to plan, allocate and
manage Capital for a particular department
Salary Budget – Used for planning and
monitoring salaries of employees of every
department.
s
KMG Domain Expertise
KMG is a partner of choice for organizations looking for opportunities to transform their business
through IT solutions. With an extensive experience of over 20 years in providing enterprise
solutions, KMG always aims to deliver business value and achieve maximum ROI on IT investment
to its partners.
Service Offerings
KMG provides its clients with full spectrum of technology Services. We provide end-to-end
solutions (analysis to maintenance) to our clients across the world. We provide a host of services that
are based on a combination of business consulting, IT skills and in-house technological repository.
Software & Application Development
Mobile Application Development
Legacy Support & Modernization
QA & Testing
Business Process Outsourcing
IT Staff Augmentation
About KMG
KMG is a technology agnostic IT consulting and
technology services company with over 300
professionals working across United States and
India serving clients across the world.
KMG provides innovative and high quality
development solutions over a host of business
functions across various industries. With an
extensive experience of over 20 years in providing
enterprise solutions, KMG is a partner of choice
for organizations looking for opportunities to
transform their business through IT solutions.
125 Baylis Road
Suite 260, Melville
NY 11747, USA
Phone: 631-777-2424
Fax: 631 777 2626
www.kmgus.com
