CAST Case Study: Baptist Village Communities and HealthMEDX

Baptist Village Communities (BVC), a LeadingAge Member in Oklahoma City, OK, had a long list of criteria when it went looking for its new electronic medical record (EMR). The EMR needed to: 

• Meet the needs of the entire continuum of care, including skilled nursing, assisted living and home health. 

• Eliminate paper and automate resident charting. 

• Be intuitive and embraced by staff.

• Improve resident care and family communications. 

• Allow BVC team members to spend more meaningful time with residents.

• Improve Minimum Data Set (MDS) quality of content and ease of data collection.

• Allow physicians to engage in the care coordination process.

BVC decided that the HealthMEDX Vision came the closest to meeting its selection criteria. The Vision platform automates and integrates clinical, financial and customer relationship management functions across all post-acute care settings.

The collaboration between BVC and CAST Supporter HealthMEDX is featured in the latest CAST Case Study. The case study is entitled, “Improving Staff Efficiencies and Reducing Hospital Readmissions with an EM.”

Implementation Outcomes

BVC decided to implement the full Vision product functionality simultaneously in all of its 8 health center locations. While daunting at first, the implementation yielded several positive outcomes:

• Efficient and accurate MDS completion. Certified Nursing Assistants (CNA) use a touchscreen to capture complete MDS information efficiently. CNAs are documenting more consistently today than ever before, according to the case study. 

• Physician access. Physicians have immediate access to the full resident chart anywhere, anytime. These health care providers are using Vision to review resident information both in BVC care settings and from their homes and offices.

• Efficient monitoring. BVC can now better manage its clinical workflow and monitor its financial performance. The organization monitors hospital readmissions and prevents unnecessary trips to the hospital by reporting across locations and pulling information on residents from multiple areas of the chart. 

• Staff satisfaction. Staff satisfaction with the Vision product surpassed BVC’s expectations. Vision has streamlined the jobs of CNAs and other staff members and allowed them to spend more time with residents.

Experience-Based Implementation Tips

BVC offers this advice to providers considering an EMR implementation:

• Assign knowledgeable clinical, financial and human resource staff to the EMR implementation process. These staff members must be familiar with organizational processes and they must have technical expertise. 

• Establish a team that can create excitement with EMR users and ensure quality. 

• Think through hardware, Internet and end-user setup. 

• Be prepared from the start with a disaster recovery plan. Don’t put it on the back burner.