Volume 5 - Issue 5 - September 2010

Editor's Notes

By: Donna Carroll
Editor - The MEDITECH Community Bulletin
VP, Business Development & Recruitment - Systems Personnel

Welcome to the latest issue of The MEDITECH Community Bulletin.  Below are just a few of the items found in this month's newsletter:

• Our Customer Spotlight this month illuminates how two different MEDITECH customers are addressing some of their challenges:  1) Angel Medical Center Relieves Growing Pains with Storage Technology Refresh for MEDITECH EHR and Sectra PACS; and 2) Mercy Hospital (Portland, Maine) Saves More Than $80,000 by Just Dusting Off Some Old Tools.

• The Industry Spotlight announces two upcoming industry conferences: 1) Healthcare IT Solutions Exchange (HITSE) New England 2010 Conference on October 26-27 in Westborough, MA; and 2) Canadian MEDITECH User Group (CMUG) at the itHealthcare Canada Conference & Exhibition on October 4-5 in Toronto.

• There are two different vendors featured in this issue’s Vendor Spotlight column: 1) FormFast offers a webinar on September 16th featuring one California hospital's success story in migrating from MEDITECH MAGIC to 6.0; and 2) KOM Networks spreads the work about its unique Junk-A-Juke Program which collects and recycles obsolete and legacy storage equipment and donates all the money generated from raw materials to Feed The Children.

• In this month’s Tricks of the Trade column, John Sharpe of Comstock Software explores MEDITECH Data Repository using NPR DPMs, Segments & Fields.

• Our Featured Employer column this issue describes two positions with one of Systems Personnel's clients, an acute care hospital in New Jersey.  The hospital is growing their IT staff and is seeking a Senior Clinical Analyst and a Senior Financial Analyst to join their team.

• As usual, there are numerous press releases in this issue’s Recent News section.

• All information and content for the October 2010 issue of The MEDITECH Community Bulletin must be received no later than Monday, September 27th. Thank you.

Until next time...
Donna

Customer Spotlight: Angel Medical Center Relieves Growing Pains with Storage Technology Refresh for MEDITECH EHR and Sectra PACS

CUSTOMER PROFILE

Angel Medical Center is a not‐for‐profit, critical access hospital in Franklin, NC, serving many of the 33,000 people living in Macon County since 1923. Angel Medical Center’s dedicated staff delivers the highest quality patient care using state‐of‐the‐art technology. As a leader in healthcare, they are committed to providing superior, compassionate care to patients through perpetual improvement and dedication to the community they serve.

As part of its mission to provide superior care to its patients, Angel Medical Center maintains an ongoing effort to invest in the latest technology to continually improve the quality of care and standards at its facilities. The hospital’s network and IT staff support an enormous amount of electronic data from their various systems and healthcare applications and the IT infrastructure must keep up with the data demands of hospital staff and caregivers.

With technology upgrades, improvements in image resolutions that increase file sizes, and a consistent growth in the number of imaging studies done each year, PACS (Picture Archiving and Communications Systems) put new demands on the management of archived images stored on the hospital’s SAN.

Radiology is the largest contributor of information in healthcare. The average size of a medical image is approximately 30MB and that is expected to double over the next few years due to new imaging technologies (3D imaging, Digital Mammography, etc.). Healthcare providers rely on image availability at the point of care to make proper diagnoses. Having archived studies for comparison centrally located and quickly accessible on the network gives caregivers the critical information they need, when they need it, to provide top quality care to their patients. With many different imaging applications (RIS, Cardiology PACS, LIS, OR, Ambulatory, Oncology), image sharing and storage consolidation is key to delivering quality patient care and reducing overall costs.

CUSTOMER ENVIRONMENT

The hospital’s HCIS and applications data was being managed by IT staff on a SAN (storage area network) with archive storage on an older optical jukebox with removable WORM (write once read many) media. Their Sectra PACS stored frequently accessed images online and archived images were managed by the NAS File Server at the back end.

After a 30 day period, the online data was being purged to the NAS File Server. The PACS File Server was getting filled up with images accumulated after close to a decade of imaging and the server was slow.

They also had no comprehensive disaster recovery plan other than backups. Any failure would have resulted in some significant downtime. The archived data was all stored at the same location which put critical information at risk of being destroyed in the case of an unexpected disaster.

THE SYMPTOMS

After implementing an EMR (Electronic Medical Record), and consequently archiving more data and images, Angel’s IT staff recognized that there were serious maintenance and reliability issues with their old optical jukebox. It was becoming increasingly expensive to maintain as compared to its functionality and it wasn’t mitigating their regulatory compliance related risks and liabilities. Data retrieval was very slow and sometimes labor intensive if administrators had to locate and pull data from its storage location, upload it and retrieve it.

Upon exploring the benefits of KOMpliance in the context of archiving their records for their Meditech HCIS, Angel’s IT staff realized that they could also replace their existing PACS backend file server with a secure KOMpliance archive to protect and preserve their data and most importantly mitigate risk and data loss.

With the increasing volume of image data that Angel’s Radiology Department was archiving from PACS exams, capacities on the NAS were quickly consumed and becoming arduous to manage. It was imperative that Angel implement an easily scalable storage solution to provide a secure, long‐term repository for archived studies that needed to be retained according to HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and MQSA (Mammography Quality Standards Act) requirements, while maintaining a reasonable cost of ownership to meet budgetary constraints.

THE EXAMINATION & DIAGNOSIS

Relying on their aging NAS to meet the ever increasing storage capacity requirements for their Sectra PACS was not cost efficient and did not meet the high availability or long‐term permanence that Angel Medical Center needed to protect and access its archive data and images. The stream of patient images and other critical data being managed by Angel’s storage infrastructure meant that they had to increase their archive storage capacity quickly.

Angel’s IT team was expending valuable IT resources, time and money to apply band‐aid fixes for old technology while still leaving the hospital’s most valuable data at risk. Compounding the situation were concerns about offsite backup and recovery of data in a disaster scenario. A fire, natural disaster, or system failure would prohibit access and could jeopardize the security of the data.

Oversight and accountability demands were also increasing as a result of HIPAA, JCAHO, MQSA and other regulatory requirements, including the HITECH Act. Angel’s IT team realized that choosing a system that offered longevity, security, authenticity, high availability, and scalability was the only choice.

These challenges led them to look for an archive storage solution that would meet multiple goals:

1. 1.  More efficiently and cost‐effectively store, protect and maintain the increasing amounts of data and images resulting from regulatory requirements and changes in technology.
2. 2.  Minimize the risks associated with data loss in an unanticipated disaster.
3. 3.  Be compatible with their existing PACS.

THE TIPPING POINT

Once The Angel IT team reviewed the KOMpliance solution architecture for deployment to replace the obsolete Hewlett‐Packard Jukebox used to archive the records and images for the Meditech archive solution from Hyland Software; they realized that it looked and felt just like other NAS filers that they had deployed in their infrastructure. The key here was that they were already familiar with the Windows NAS filer used to archive the PACS images for the Sectra solution. The Angel team had a great deal of confidence in the capabilities of KOM as a vendor that they trusted and that had always been there to support them in the past.

Taking into consideration all their options, budgetary constraints, and most importantly, KOM Networks’ dedication to customer service and responsive support Angel chose KOMpliance for tamperproof, cost effective archive storage. Since KOM software was already being used as part of a previous integrated solution to archive data from their Meditech HCIS, along with the fact that KOMpliance was based on familiar standard Enterprise Class Servers powered by Windows made this a very compelling proposition. With KOMpliance there was no learning curve. Angel’s IT staff already possessed the administrative talent and knowledge to deploy, use and maintain KOMpliance to meet their regulatory obligations today and well into the future.

“KOMpliance offered a great combination of technology, ease of use, and cost which were very important to us, but what really tipped this transition in favor of KOM was the outstanding level of support we have received from them in the past,” said Gary Hanold, director of information technology at Angel Medical Center. “We believed that it would work and we had confidence that KOM would help us overcome any obstacles.”

THE CURE

Angel Medical Center deployed four KOMpliance archive storage devices. The first one took the place of the obsolete optical jukebox and integrated with the hospital’s HCIS to archive data on high performance hard‐disk based WORM. Two KOMpliance units provide redundancy of the primary archives in a separate location for disaster recovery. The fourth KOMpliance unit integrated with the Sectra PACS and within 26 hours of being deployed, 7.4TB of data was  migrated, averaging 2.2GB per minute.

“KOMpliance was fast and painless,” said Jim Moran, network administrator/HIPAA security officer. “We simply copied the data and then changed IP addresses and everything was up and running in minutes. The system ran faster and the images were accessible at a faster rate than the old infrastructure. The exceptional support we received to overcome an issue with the retention settings and compatibility with the Sectra software was quick and first‐rate and a deciding factor in our plans for storage of other healthcare applications.”

In addition to meeting stringent performance, reliability, scalability, cost, and long‐term retention requirements, KOMpliance is widely used in the healthcare industry because it’s technology agnostic and vendor independent, and so inherently flexible.

“Improving the efficiency of our storage environment and reducing the cost to manage critical data was very important to our organization, but more importantly, we needed to make sure that we were meeting strict compliance requirements for archiving health information and we needed a solution to easily restore information in the event of a disaster”, said Gary Hanold. “In addition, we were also looking for an archive storage solution that would integrate and complement our existing technology investment in Sectra PACS. We needed universal archive storage that was more than just a RAID disk and KOMpliance more than fit‐the‐bill."

While regulatory retention periods for PACS image archive vary by state, North Carolina requires that images for adults be retained for 5‐11 years after the patient’s discharge. For children, images have to be retained until age 21 years. The Mammography Quality Standards Act (MQSA) requires that mammograms are retained until the next annual image or for at least 10 years if the patient has had no other mammograms at the facility. However, mammography images can be kept longer to assure good quality, or for ongoing comparison of earlier studies. In cases of medical research, historic documentation, clinical trials and ongoing disease treatment, some medical images can be required to be retained indefinitely.

“KOMpliance provides us with functionality that wasn’t available before”, says Lori Smith, director of radiology. “With its automated policy‐based retention, we no longer have to worry about meeting different regulatory requirements for different types of studies or patients. KOMpliance automatically stores and preserves the images for as long as required and then automatically erases the archived image when regulatory compliance is met or retention period is reached, freeing up much needed storage space.”

OUTSTANDING RESULTS

With the introduction of KOMpliance into their storage environment, Angel Medical Center’s IT staff is now confident that their most valuable data is secured, protected, and always available, and that they can meet their future growth needs and compliance obligations using affordable, efficient storage.

Today both clinical and non‐clinical HCIS information, PACS images and associated documentation are still captured and accessed by the users in exactly the same way as before, but now retrieval time has been cut from minutes to seconds.

Angel Medical Center was so pleased with the results they are getting using KOMpliance as storage for their PACS and the five‐star 24/7 support that they get with KOM Networks, that they are now also using KOMpliance as the storage array for additional applications, including Nuclear Medicine and Echocardiograms, that demand large amounts of data storage space, rapid retrieval times, and stringent protection.

Angel Medical Center’s caregivers and hospital staff are now assured that they will have the information necessary to continue to provide the highest quality care and superior services to their patients.

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To learn more about Angel Medical Center, visit them online at http://www.angelmed.org/.

For more information about how KOM Networks can help you implement a comprehensive information lifecycle solution to optimize your existing storage environment, visit them online at www.komnetworks.com or call 1-888-556-6462.

Customer Spotlight: Mercy Hospital Saves More Than $80,000 by Just Dusting Off Some Old Tools

Mercy Hospital is a not-for-profit community hospital sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas, Regional Community of Portland. Established in 1918 by the Catholic Diocese of Portland and the Sisters of Mercy, Mercy Hospital's mission is to provide compassionate, clinically excellent health care, especially to the poor and disadvantaged. Mercy Hospital is a member of Catholic Health East, a multi-institutional Catholic health system serving communities through regional healthcare systems in 11 eastern states from Maine to Florida.

THE CHALLENGE

In the midst of the recession, Mercy Hospital was undergoing a massive reorganization and transitional period meant to absorb some of the negative financial affects of the downturned economy. A large part of the transitional focus was on the IT department, where a potential for greater efficiency existed. Drill down even further to the network level to find Senior Network Engineer Stan DeFreese, the man responsible for a large portion of the Mercy Hospital network spanning the hospital’s main location, a brand new campus, 15 remote sites and the connection to the hospital’s data center in Philadelphia.

DeFreese elaborates: “With all of the reorganization going on, I had to wear a lot of hats—thus making it difficult to simultaneously handle my usual responsibilities. At this point, we were going to need a really robust network monitoring software to supplement my position.” There was a corporate standard network monitoring program, but it turned out it wasn’t as helpful at the local level as DeFreese was hoping.

A large portion of Mercy Hospital’s traffic flow was engaged by its electronic medical record (EMR) system (MEDITECH). A monitoring and automation system would make it much easier to ensure information was safely reaching its final destination.

Because the point of the reorganization was to cut down on costs, finding a new, potentially costly solution for monitoring the network was going to be a tough sell to management. DeFreese would need to find an inexpensive option; luckily for him, it turned out that the solution was right in front of him the whole time.

THE SOLUTION

About eight years prior to the reorganization, Mercy Hospital’s network team had purchased some hardware through Plixer that included an early iteration of the company’s powerful Scrutinizer NetFlow and sFlow Analyzer. DeFreese recognized that the program had grown much more powerful over the years; it was just a matter of taking it off the shelf, dusting it off and getting it operational.

“When we originally got Scrutinizer, we didn’t really have our tentacles in the network yet,” mentioned DeFreese. “Streamlining came over the next five years, and Scrutinizer just never made it off the shelf. But now was the time for the solution to shine.”

When Scrutinizer had been implemented, DeFreese says he was impressed at the level of visibility the program gave him into the network. “Scrutinizer sees disparate applications, top talkers and how much bandwidth each one is using—all from a much more detailed application/packet level perspective. Plixer’s solution answers questions like ‘Which device is taking up bandwidth and utilization of application servers?’ Basically, it gives us a level of control and analysis that we’ve never had before.”

It turns out that Mercy Hospital got Scrutinizer up and running just in time for a crucial project. Mercy Hospital was gearing up to implement a locally-housed ambulatory electronic medical record (AEMR) system for both remote sites and main locations. The AEMR would communicate directly with several different aspects of the network infrastructure, including OR and MR applications that communicate directly back to the core medical record. With Scrutinizer, DeFreese has been able to test how the new AEMR system will affect the network’s bandwidth so Mercy Hospital can plan accordingly.

THE BENEFITS

After Scrutinizer was put in place, DeFreese almost immediately recognized a huge problem. Mercy Hospital was paying huge bills monthly for a transparent LAN service (TLS). When DeFreese undertook analysis with Scrutinizer, collecting data from different protocols and connection peers, the detailed reports Scrutinizer returned revealed an incredible truth. “We were paying for a gigabyte TLS connection, but the reality was that we weren’t even using 50 megabytes. By adjusting our subscription, we came to save between $80,000 and $100,000 a year.”

DeFreese points to another early example of Scrutinizer’s usefulness. It turned out that a client in the local server that handled OR, surgery and like data was taking up nearly 20 percent of all communication to the data center. Gathering this information allowed DeFreese to adjust the traffic accordingly.

Some of the benefits the program has offered Mercy Hospital are more basic. “Scrutinizer takes a complicated situation and makes it understandable,” remarked DeFreese. “Graphs and the solution’s simplistic but comprehensive layout break down the situation for the end user—especially CIOs and CTOs who might not have the engineering experience to understand the raw data.”

DeFreese also praises the Plixer support team, saying that they have gone above and beyond to help him fix any problems he has. “If I can’t fix it, they’ll work with me over WebEx to fix it—and if that doesn’t work, they’re on site as quickly as possible to get the job done.”

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To learn more about Mercy Hospital, Portland, visit them online at www.mercyhospital.org.

For more information about Plixer International, Inc., visit them online at www.plixer.com or call 207.324.8805.

Industry Spotlight: HITSE...A new style of collaboration in Healthcare IT?

By: Donna Carroll, Editor

Last month, I was approached by the Healthcare IT Solutions Exchange (HITSE) wanting to place a banner ad on The MEDITECH Community Bulletin website in order to publicize their upcoming New England 2010 Conference.  Since I was not yet familiar with the organization, I started to ask a few questions to determine whether our newsletter was an appropriate venue for them.  After a few minutes of Q&A with the HITSE founders, I was intrigued by some of their plans and continued to ask questions about the organization and conference.

Research as well as anecdotal evidence have shown that the number one reason professionals attend conferences is to learn about new solutions to their challenges.  That’s also one of the main reasons I invest the time and effort to publish our newsletter each month.  I believe that professionals who care about their work are always happy to share solutions which will resolve problems, improve processes, and/or save money.  Apparently, that’s exactly what the organizers of the Healthcare IT Solutions Exchange (HITSE) New England 2010 Conference believe, too.

The conference format will include 2 distinct tracks each day on a variety of industry topics.  Sessions will be delivered by vendor-neutral presenters from independent organizations, and industry experts.  There will also be opportunities for hospital speakers and CIOs for panel discussions.

On Tuesday, October 26th, there will be two separate tracks: “CPOE” and “MEDITECH 6.0”.  On Wednesday, October 27th, the two tracks will be: “Meaningful Use” and “Revenue Cycle Improvement.”  Attendees may pick and choose which sessions they wish to attend from either track.

According to the event organizers, the conference has been designed specifically to allow attendees to make their own choices about the specific tracks and sessions they wish to attend.  There will be no rigid schedule which every attendee must follow, thus enabling attendees to decide how to get the most value from the conference.  I, for one, am curious to see how this new style of collaboration will be received by its attendees.  I plan to attend at least one day of the conference, and will let you know my thoughts in a future issue of The MEDITECH Community Bulletin.

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For more information about HITSE, visit them online at www.hitse.org.

Industry Spotlight: Canadian MEDITECH User Group to Hold Education Track at itHealthcare Canada

HIMSS-Ontario invites all Healthcare Professionals (providers, clinicians, managers, informaticians) from all industry sectors; information technology/management professionals, academics and health planners to attend. Over 50 education sessions with a focus on information management and innovation in I.T. products and services, "Collaborating for Success - Delivering Results", to assist providers deliver better care for their patient. You will walk away with new knowledge and tools you can put into practice immediately and share with your team.

itHealthcare Conference and Exhibition
International Centre, Toronto
October 4-5, 2010

The Canadian MEDITECH User Group (CMUG) has been the driving force in promoting development of features and functions within the MEDITECH family of hospitals in Ontario since 1986. Membership is free to hospitals who hold a maintenance contract and the monthly meetings with the Senior IT representative yield many benefits and interesting discussions. The group is supported by the vendor community who graciously provide meeting space and a lunch each month.

CMUG will be facilitating 10 leading edge interactive discussions for all MEDITECH users to participate in. Network with your peers and benefit from this unique learning opportunity!

• Pharmacy and automated carts
• Regulatory Compliance Committee
• Synoptic Reporting
• Documentation using mobile computing
• Operations: Virtualization, OPS 9.x and Workstation 4.x
• Training
• 6.0 The Reality
• Physician Office Integration
• OLIS
• MEDITECH Open sessions

All sessions are scheduled for Monday October 4th and Tuesday October 5th.

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For more information, go to http://www.ithealthcare.ca/programs/cmug.html

Vendor Spotlight: FormFast Webinar to Feature California Hospital's "Success Story" in Migrating from MEDITECH MAGIC to MEDITECH 6.0

CIO Jim Morrow to share steps Beverly Hospital took to prepare for the upgrade, as well as lessons learned during the transition

St. Louis, Missouri – August 17, 2010 – FormFast, a leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions, today announced a Webinar featuring executive leadership from Beverly Hospital in Montebello, Calif., which successfully migrated from MEDITECH MAGIC to MEDITECH 6.0 – a challenge that may be faced by nearly 2,300 healthcare organizations worldwide.

The free Webinar, scheduled for 11 a.m. (CDT) Sept. 16, 2010, will be presented by Jim Morrow, Chief Information Officer at Beverly Hospital, who is managing the ongoing transition for the 224-bed acute care, not-for-profit facility.

Beverly is one of the first five sites to convert to MEDITECH 6.0 and went live with Phase I of the upgrade in November 2009. It currently is the only operating 6.0 system west of Boulder, Colo. Phase I involved migrating all information from MAGIC to the new platform, and adding functionality that included Emergency Department and Operating Room modules.

While reducing reliance on paper and saving money are welcome benefits, Morrow notes these aren’t the primary motivation behind Beverly’s conversion. “Our ultimate objective is to increase efficiencies and improve quality of care,” he says. “We recognized from the onset that this undertaking would be challenging. But, throughout, we’ve had no doubt that it will produce great dividends for the organization in the end.”

During the upcoming Webinar, Morrow will share steps Beverly took to prepare for the upgrade, as well as lessons learned during the transition. He will provide a “blueprint” for attendees to adapt at their own hospitals and discuss how FormFast provides a seamless bridge between the two MEDITECH systems, augmenting both clinical and administrative functions. Morrow will also address Beverly’s plan for a staged move towards completely paperless, fully electronic operations.

“We recognize that this MEDITECH upgrade has a significant impact on hospitals from coast to coast,” notes Rob Harding, president and CEO of FormFast. “We are delighted to sponsor this educational event so hospitals can learn what works – and what doesn’t – from the perspective of an HIT professional who successfully completed the first stages of the conversion project.”

Register for the “Managing a Successful Migration from MEDITECH MAGIC to MEDITECH 6.0” Webinar at http://tinyurl.com/24gosoo.

ABOUT FORMFAST

Since 1992, FormFast software has enabled healthcare organizations to achieve significant process improvement across the enterprise, supporting HR, contract management, rogue clinical processes, risk management and countless other workflows. A top-ranked provider of electronic workflow solutions, FormFast serves more than 800 hospitals internationally. Our software, deployed by our partners and professional service staff under our managed services model, helps healthcare organizations accelerate their progression from time-consuming manual processes to fully automated workflows. FormFast solutions integrate with legacy business systems such as databases, archiving systems and portals, allowing users throughout the organization to gain efficiency, improve coordination of tasks, reduce supply costs, and eliminate errors resulting from misdirected routing, mistakes in form completion and delayed delivery.

Vendor Spotlight: KOM Networks Offers Junk-A-Juke Program to MEDITECH Customers

KOM Networks is pleased to offer a unique program to upgrade and recycle obsolete and legacy archive storage solutions for FREE.  Proceeds from the recycling of obsolete optical Jukeboxes and Storage systems will be donated to “Feed the Children” non-profit foundation.  Click here for complete program details.

REPLACE YOUR LEGACY ARCHIVE

Whether you have a large data center or a small server room, KOM Networks will replace your current archive and storage system with a BRAND NEW, energy efficient KOMpliance Archive equal to it in capacity and superior to it in performance. All you have to do is swap out your old Optical Jukebox or other legacy storage device and recycle it with KOM Networks for FREE with three year maintenance commitment!

SAVE THE EARTH

KOM Networks in conjunction with our recycling partner Technology Conservation Group (TCG), will remove your old system free-of-charge. They will dismantle and recycle the obsolete storage, sell off the parts for other uses or sell the raw materials. The proceeds will be donated to charity.

FEED THE CHILDREN

Furthermore, proceeds from the recycling of obsolete optical Jukeboxes and Storage systems will be donated to “Feed the Children” non-profit foundation.  Twelve million American children are at risk of going hungry. With these tough economic times, those numbers are beginning to grow. KOM Networks will take the money collected from the sale of the system components and raw materials and donate that to “Feed The Children”.

REAP THE REWARDS

Here’s what some MEDITECH customers had to say about KOM Networks’ Junk-A-Juke program:

“KOM Networks is well known to us for providing superior support as we struggled with our old optical jukebox.  Their Junk-A-Juke upgrade program allowed us to replace old technology with a new high performance, hard-disk based WORM solution without effort or capital expenditure.  They saved us the worry and cost of equipment disposal with responsible recycling and the proceeds went to a worthy cause”.

~Mike Miller, Director of IT, Mecosta County Medical Center

“Thanks to KOM’s Junk-A-Juke program we were able to upgrade our old archiving system with a much faster higher capacity unit that is hassle free.  On top of all that we were able to get rid of years worth of old broken equipment and with their help get that material recycled and kept out of the landfills.  As an added bonus the money from the recycling went to feed some people in need.  It has been an awesome program!”

~Nathan Bartnicki, MCSE, Memorial Hospital

“As a small community hospital we limit the number of vendors we deal with.  Initially we were not even considering KOMpliance as a solution to the ongoing troubles we were having with our old Jukebox.  However, because of the superior support we received from KOM over the last year to help us resolve problems with the aging Jukebox, we decided to investigate KOMpliance to replace the jukebox.  It ultimately came down to price.  KOM was able to provide us with more storage for less money.  We have been very pleased with our decision.  The implementation group engaged us quickly and the setup was very fast and easy.  The fact that the KOMpliance device is a Windows Server box made the manageability and integration into our current environment straightforward and effortless. Our overall experience with KOM Network was wonderful, we have no complaints.  Everyone we dealt with from sales to implementation was helpful.  I truly felt like they were trying to establish a partnership and were considering what was best for the hospital."

~Shane Tapper, Director of IT, Fort Madison Community Hospital

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To learn more about KOM Networks, visit them online at www.komnetworks.com.

Tricks of the Trade: MEDITECH DR – Way Finding Using NPR DPMs, Segments & Fields

By: John Sharpe, President, Comstock Software, Inc.

Your first adventures with MEDITECH Data Repository (DR) may be spent mapping NPR DPMs, Segments, & Fields to the Tables & Columns in the Data Repository.  This discovery process is essential in finding out how to produce reports you might have written in NPR, with DR as the data source instead.

SysDrTables & SysDrColumns, tables in your DR database, are indispensable as you map your way from NPR to the DR.  You can write ad hoc queries against these tables; or implement a more permanent solution that will save you time in every report you write.

SQL, the language you’ll be using to write reports in the DR, looks a little like this:

Resulting in this …

So you won’t have to look this code up and run it every time, you or your Database Administrator might implement a stored procedure on your SQL Server that does the same thing.

Once the stored procedure is implemented on your DR server, you’ll call it like this:

Example 1 … a search using DPM, Segment, & Field

Results in this …

Example 2 … a search using DPM, & Field

Results in this …

Example 3 … a search using just the Field

Results in this …

As we’ve seen here, stored procedures help you by concentrating your code on the SQL Server where it is reusable, shortening development time for other queries, reports, stored procedures and views in related projects.  In a way, I think of stored procedures as NPR Z.procedures or Z.zcus.procedures for the SQL Server.  My favorite thing about using stored procedures this way - is that I can type 1 line of code, instead of writing a custom query each time I want to look something up.

John Sharpe is President / NPR Consultant at Comstock Software, Inc. Learn more about NPR Report Writing at the MEDITECH NPR Report Writing Blog.

Featured Employer: Sponsored by MeditechCareers.com

The online career hub for MEDITECH professionals

Every month, we feature one employer who has advertised their job posting on our affiliate web site: MeditechCareers.com. In addition to the basic job posting, we provide some information about the employer, their location and environment, and highlight them as a "Featured Employer" in this newsletter.

To advertise your MEDITECH-related opportunity on MeditechCareers.com and become a "Featured Employer", contact Donna Carroll at 413-569-1111.

Systems Personnel's Featured Client
Northern New Jersey

We have been engaged by our client on an exclusive basis to conduct this national search.

About the Organization:

Our client is a 260-bed, acute-care, non-profit community hospital with approximately 1,500 employees. It features some of the most sophisticated diagnostic and therapeutic equipment available. More than 600 physicians representing more than 60 different specialties hold staff privileges. They are supported by allied health professionals who utilize the most current technologies and on-going education in treatment, while never losing sight of the importance and dignity of each individual patient. The hospital serves residents from more than 25 communities and provides care for people of all ages. It has been recognized for excellence for programs from obstetrics to geriatrics. Its many services include a state-of-the-art emergency department, cancer care from diagnosis to treatment all under one roof, a weight loss surgery program, a pain management center, a sleep health institute, and a comprehensive wound healing center.

About the Location:

Located just 35 miles outside of New York City, our client is located in in the heart of the Boston-Washington corridor. As a fast-growing county with unsurpassed natural beauty, the county offers "the best of both worlds": neighborhoods that provide small town charm without sacrificing accessibility to big city amenities. Their suburban towns, rolling mountains, and sophisticated downtowns all offer a diverse array of housing, cultural, and recreational opportunities. Numerous nearby activities and can be found at the Jersey shore, Poconos, and in New York City. From its Colonial beginnings to the vibrant 21st century mecca that it has become, the county boasts many thriving communities. Fifty of the Fortune 500 companies have offices located in the area. New Jersey's seventh largest county now boasts notable museums, outstanding forums for the arts, exquisite gardens, parks and outdoor recreation, multimillion-dollar shopping centers and exceptional air, rail and bus transportation services that serve thousands of commuters daily. From such humble origins, this great county arose.

About the Department:

There are approximately 22 people in the IS department, comprised of different groups: Analysts, Networking, Technical, Telecom, and Programming. The Analyst group currently has a Lead Clinical Analyst with a team of 5 Clinical Analysts; and a Lead Financial Analyst with a team of 2 Financial Analysts. They are a cohesive group, and collaborative team. The Analysts all work together in the same building, off-site from the hospital. They are a MEDITECH MAGIC 5.63 environment, currently LIVE with all core clinical applications as well as EDM, ORM, BMV, and eMAR. They in the process of implementing Clinical Review, and future projects include the implementation of PCM. Financial applications in use include B/AR, AP, GL, MM, CWS, MRI, ADM, and ABS. They are use numerous third-party vendor applications such as Kreg Budgeting, ADP Payroll, TC1 Time & Attendance, and McKesson Medical Necessity.

Position Profile: Senior Clinical Systems Analyst (JOB # 1778)

Reporting to the IS Director, you will be responsible for supporting and optimizing MEDITECH’s advanced clinical applications (EDM, ORM, BMV, eMAR), and meeting the challenge of computerized physician order entry (POM) and on-line documentation (PDOC). Performing project management, providing application support/optimization, and developing strong relationships with the clinical user community will be your primary focus.

Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree required, preferably in computer science or related field of study
• Clinical background in nursing or other related clinical healthcare preferred
• Project management certification and/or experience
• 5+ years of MEDITECH clinical application support experience
• Prior experience supporting MEDITECH's advanced clinical applications (EDM, ORM, BMV, eMAR)
• Solid knowledge of clinical healthcare operations & processes including Emergency Services, Surgical Services, Nursing Documentation and Medication Administration
• Must be a change agent, know systems functionality and can promote the functionality to meet user needs
• Must possess strong customer service skills

Position Profile: Senior Financial Systems Analyst (JOB # 1779)

Reporting to the IS Director, you will be responsible for supporting and optimizing MEDITECH’s revenue cycle applications (primary focus on B/AR), as well as other financial applications (AP, GL, ADM, CWS), and performing NPR report writing. Performing project management, providing application support/optimization, and developing strong relationships with the financial user community will be your primary focus.

Qualifications:

• Bachelors degree required, preferably in computer science or related field of study
• Background in patient accounting or other related financial healthcare field is preferred
• Project management certification and/or experience
• 5+ years of MEDITECH B/AR application support experience
• Knowledge of NPR with at least some level of report writing experience
• Solid knowledge of financial healthcare operations & hospital revenue cycle including billing, reimbursement, contracts, denial management, and managed care provisions
• Must be a change agent, know systems functionality and can promote the functionality to meet user needs
• Must possess strong customer service skills

How to Apply:

Please email your resume to Donna@CarrollSearch.com,  and reference JOB # 1778 or 1779.  For additional details, call Donna Carroll at 413-569-1111.

Recent News: Happenings in the MEDITECH Community

MEDITECH Certification Update

WESTWOOD, MA, September 10, 2010 -- On August 30, The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced the initial ONC-Authorized Testing and Certification Bodies (ONC-ATCBs) for Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology. The Certification Commission for Health Information Technology (CCHIT), Chicago, Illinois, and the Drummond Group Inc. (DGI), Austin, Texas, were named as the first technology review bodies that have been authorized to test and certify EHR systems for compliance with the standards and certification criteria that were issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services earlier this year. Applications for additional ONC-ATCBs are currently under review.

MEDITECH will certify its 6.0 platform, as well as its Client/Server 5.64 and MAGIC 5.64 releases. MEDITECH is preparing to deliver a special ARRA priority pack, which contains the software to reflect the new and updated criteria. We will announce a certification date as soon as we determine timeframes and evaluate requirements from each authorized ATCB.

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National Surgical Hospitals Partners with Summit Healthcare to Implement Workflow Automation Technology

Efforts to eliminate manual data entry and streamline data cleanup efforts drive a need for scripting technology

BRAINTREE, MA, September 14, 2010 — National Surgical Hospitals have chosen to partner with Summit Healthcare, a leader in healthcare system integration and task automation technology to assist them during their data normalization and clean up efforts of their MEDITECH databases. They recognized that these efforts could result in hours of manual data entry and they wanted to eliminate these processes through automation technology. National Surgical Hospitals selected Summit Healthcare because of the company’s deep MEDITECH integration expertise and its robust workflow automation software, the Summit Scripting Toolkit which has been proven in all platforms of MEDITECH.

As the multiple facilities work to tackle the large data cleansing project, they will be utilizing the Summit Scripting Toolkit across the facilities. The Summit Scripting Toolkit is a full featured workflow and task automation tool that will alleviate the manual processes described above and can also be leveraged again and again for future projects. SST can also provide batch uploads, near real-time data exchange when conventional HL7 methods are unavailable and interactive script environments such as patient kiosks.

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Fauquier Hospital Awarded Designation as Patient-Centered Hospital

WARRENTON, VA, September 7, 2010 — Fauquier Hospital in Warrenton has been formally designated by Planetree, Inc. as a “Planetree designated patient-centered hospital” for the second time in three years. This designation recognizes Fauquier Hospital’s achievement and innovation in fostering a culture within the hospital in which professional caregivers partner with patients and families, and where patient comfort, dignity, empowerment and well-being are prioritized with providing top-quality clinical care.

To become a designated Planetree patient-centered hospital, Fauquier Hospital was asked to demonstrate that specific patient-centered policies have been sustained over time. Designation status further requires the hospital to meet or exceed national performance benchmarks for quality and patient satisfaction.

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Cayuga Medical Center Implements Summit Provider Exchange for Physician Office Integration Cayuga Medical Center Implements Summit Provider Exchange for Physician Office Integration

Summit Healthcare APEX Product Suite to be leveraged for Future MEDITECH Integration Projects Including 6.0 Migration

BRAINTREE, MA, August 24, 2010 — Ithaca, New York’s Cayuga Medical Center has contracted with Summit Healthcare, a leader in healthcare system integration and task automation, for its full Summit Apex integrated product suite. Cayuga has successfully implemented Summit Provider Exchange - a scalable, secure physician office integration solution that facilitates the bi-directional communication of patient data between MEDITECH and the ambulatory EMR practices.

Cayuga Medical Center, a 204-bed, acute care medical center focused on state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment services, was looking for a way to integrate with its physician offices’ MEDENT EMR. Cayuga selected Summit physician office integration technology to facilitate the exchange of patient data, such as orders and results, to its offices, with the ability to add more EMR systems at any time. Cayuga is currently working with Summit Healthcare to implement a script to pre-register patients in MEDITECH and send orders to the hospital once the patient has presented.

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Ingenix Completes Acquisition of Picis

EDEN PRAIRIE, MN, August 23, 2010 – Ingenix has completed its acquisition of Picis. As announced on July 22, this acquisition combines “health intelligence” provided by Ingenix with the clinical workflow solutions of Picis to increase efficiency and help optimize delivery of services in high acuity care areas of hospitals, which includes emergency departments, surgical suites and intensive care units.

As part of Ingenix, Picis will build on its market-leading solutions and analytics. The acquisition also enables Ingenix to broaden its powerful global footprint in the hospital solutions market where the opportunities to derive results and achieve efficiencies through greater use of information technology are significant.

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CHIME Releases CIO-Specific Guidebook on EHR Implementation

ANN ARBOR, MI, August 20, 2010 -- The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) released today a detailed guide intended to support healthcare CIOs in the implementation of electronic health records to meet the meaningful use requirements issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

The publication, entitled "The CIO’s Guide to Implementing EHRs in the HITECH Era", tackles the important steps healthcare organizations must take in successfully implementing electronic health records, from the initial planning through the final documentation of results.

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FormFast Becomes A Microsoft Certified Partner

ST. LOUIS, MO, August 11, 2010 — FormFast, a leading provider of enterprise workflow solutions, today announced that it has been named a Microsoft Certified Partner, passing the rigorous testing required to achieve this designation. FormFast workflow automation tools demonstrate the robust functionality necessary to operate in both the Windows® XP and Windows® 7 operating environments, and to integrate with and augment select features of Microsoft SharePoint®.

"We are pleased to be recognized as a Microsoft Certified Partner," says Rob Harding, president and CEO of FormFast. "We are confident that our compatibility with Microsoft operating systems enables clients to get maximum value from our workflow tools and accelerate their efforts to become high performance hospitals."

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MEDITECH Announces New Best Practices Series

WESTWOOD, MA, August 10, 2010 -- MEDITECH has developed a series of Best Practices to help our customers get the most out of their clinical information system and be optimally positioned for compliance with ARRA. The first set of the "ARRA Meaningful Use Stage 1" series covers Immunizations, Problem List, Discharge Process, Growth Charts & Vital Signs, Clinical Decision Support Rules, and Medication Reconciliation. These system installation and application deployment recommendations are designed to help our customers achieve Destination Excellence.

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Southwest Medical Center Selects Summit Healthcare as its Partner for Integration and Interoperability Goals

BRAINTREE, MA, August 10, 2010 — Summit Healthcare, a leader in healthcare system integration and task automation, has partnered with Southwest Medical Center. A full service medical center located in Liberal, Kansas, Southwest runs MEDITECH as its primary healthcare information system and had been investigating ways to control integration costs primarily around interface management. Operating in a point-to-point interface model for many years, Southwest management saw a need to cut costs by maximizing its interface investments now and for future interoperability needs. Southwest Medical Center came to Summit Healthcare for technology to help the organization gain control of its interface environment and automate various processes.

Summit Healthcare's interface engine, Summit Express Connect will enable Southwest Medical Center to lay a foundation to meet their strategic interconnectivity goals and to begin to see immediate ROI by leveraging its existing interfaces and eliminating redundant maintenance costs. Over time, as new vendor systems are needed for integration, Southwest Medical Center will be able to leverage their current interface investments and easily bridge this information to the destination systems. With the foundation of the Summit Express Connect interface engine, Southwest will also be primed to attain its future strategic goal of Physician Office Integration by treating its physician offices as “destination sites.”

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Worth a Read: Articles of Interest to the Health IT Field