Thanks to the ARRA’s HITECH Act of 2009, US medical practices must make the switch to a paperless practice by way of electronic health records adoption. The deadline is 2015 if they don’t want to face penalties.
While it’s generally accepted that the switch to EHRs will lower costs and save time – a 2011 Healthcare Financial Management study estimate hospital benefits range between $37M to $59M during a five-year period in addition to Meaningful Use incentive payments – there are still mounds of printed documents and charts that need to be incorporated within your new EHR system.
High-speed medical scanning is an oft-mentioned solution to your practice’s paper woes. And if the company you contract has developed software to help you meet the difficulties associated with digitizing medical charts, then it sounds like a match made in heaven. Here we speak with Solaris Imaging, a South Florida-based medical scanning software company, for more insight into the arduous transition from paper to digital.
Tell us about Solaris Streamline. Story, concept, goals.
Like hundreds of other scanning companies, we discovered there was a problem to be solved when we entered the market a year ago – doctors need help scanning their charts. Although providing scanning services to the doctors was the obvious solution, we quickly realized the actual scanning of charts was not the only solution.
Some issues we discovered were:
1. Doctors would get a sticker shock when they got a scanning quote of $18,000 to $40,000 from a scanning company.
2. In most cases, doctors would receive a cluster of PDF images on a drive from a scanning company, which they would then have to manually import patient by patient and section by section into their EHR system. This was obviously very time-consuming.
3. The risk of losing the charts, or even worse – some companies may ship charts offshore to scan. Also, some companies use temp workers who might steal information from charts to sell for tax return purposes.
How we are solving the issues:
We redesigned our production software to be a cost-effective and extremely useful tool for all physician practices that prefer to utilize their staff to scan their charts. This allows physicians to avoid the potential problems a third party could cause, such as higher financial costs and the potential for lost or stolen charts/patient information.
Solaris is the only software designed to be a springboard for all doctors meeting the challenge of digitizing their medical charts. It was designed to streamline the process of adopting an EHR.
Organizations are often scared of processes that take up too much staff time. How can practices streamline the scanning process?
We provide a comprehensive training program with the installation of the software. Two representatives (or more if needed) are placed on site to train and help with the scanning. During the training phase, our representatives train medical assistants on the process for scanning current charts, as well as how to maintain the daily scanning after the initial project is completed.
We also provide one or two high-speed scanners (scan up to 120 ppm) for the duration of the project. The process only takes an average of 60 days to complete.
How does a company like Solaris improve patient encounters?
Solaris eliminates the process of pulling charts off the wall for appointments. Physicians and staff now can pull a patient chart from Solaris just by their patient ID, SNN, or name. Therefore, the practice saves time looking for charts resulting in patients spending less time in the waiting room.
Also, when a patient calls in, they won’t have to be put on hold just so that the medical personnel can go find his or her chart from the wall; in some cases, the charts might be off site at a storage facility.
With the documents in Solaris, the office staff can access the charts immediately and provide the information the patient, or another medical facility, is seeking. This is extremely helpful in an emergency situation.
Briefly, what strategies do practices need to employ to go paperless? Is scanning software like Solaris their best option?
Start small. We suggest that a practice scan in stages. Start by scanning your most recent charts first (last 2 years), then scan your 2-5 year range charts, and scan your archive charts (inactive) later, unsorted.
Stay focused on your desired outcome. Our doctors take action and reach their goals because they stay focused on the benefits of going paperless and knowing their charts can be easily accessed and that they are safe in Solaris. Sometimes, reminding yourself what you want and why you’re doing this can help you take the next step.
What kind of data mining capabilities do medical scanning software offerings boast? Can they accumulate and organize patient data efficiently?
Because it is fully customizable, Solaris can capture as many fields as desired. The client can choose whatever fields they want to setup into Solaris, such as name, date of birth, etc. Solaris always correlates the patients’ information from the client’s practice management system before it is entered into the Solaris database.
If we don’t have direct access to the practice management system, Solaris can also use a data list, that contains the patient’s demographics, such as an excel file, CSV file, or text file exported from the practice management or other system.
