Mater implements digital patient record platform

With health records containing multiple types of information in various formats across departments, healthcare provider Mater Misericordiae searched for a solution that would deliver necessary patient information into the hands of its clinicians.

“Anything that existed on paper or in another physical format was disconnected from the patient information our clinicians accessed through our clinical portal,” Mater’s Director of Information Management, Sallyanne Wissmann, said.

“In order to get the information they needed, our clinicians had to rely on either the records arriving through a push model or they’d submit requests and wait for them to arrive.”

To solve this challenge, Mater implemented the OnBase enterprise information platform across all seven of its hospitals, deploying the platform across health information management, ambulatory, outpatient and revenue cycle areas, and integrated the system with its clinical portal. Implementation of the platform means that staff can now scan all new clinical documentation — inpatient, ambulatory, emergency, attendances — into OnBase. The system has significantly reduced the need to provide paper charts.

“With 1000 beds across seven hospitals, Mater’s medical records department had provided more than 40,000 records a month,” Wissmann said.

“From the moment we implemented OnBase across all of our hospitals, we saw an impact. Within 12 months after our go-live, we saw an 85% reduction in the amount of paper records provided.

“Our goal is to make all of a patient’s health record available in our clinical portal so that when a clinician brings up a patient’s record, they can be confident they have all the information they need,” she explained.

Having easy access to patient information has allowed Mater clinicians and staff to spend less time finding information, creating more time for clinical care, research and education.

“Ultimately, we want to capture patient information electronically, natively. So when we looked at content management solutions, we wanted to find one that wouldn’t require us to have to reinvent the wheel in a future state,” Wissmann said.

The product’s virtual print driver and point-of-service scanning capabilities helped Mater to significantly reduce the need to print and scan in documentation. The health system completely eliminated what had been a $12,000 monthly spend on chart covers and dividers within nine months of implementing OnBase.

“Hyland offers healthcare organisations solutions that anticipate digital transformation. OnBase helped us solve our problem today, and we’re confident it will help us solve our problems tomorrow.”

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