Longtime MEDITECH customer Major Health Partners (Shelbyville, IN) recently went LIVE with MEDITECH’s new web-designed Expanse Patient Care solution. The solution was rolled out facility-wide, including in the ED, where medication reconciliation technicians saw immediate results.
These technicians saved on average three minutes of time per patient and realized a 30% improvement in the average time for overall home medication verification.
Five years prior, the organization created the medication reconciliation technician role to achieve their goal of collecting an accurate home medication list for every patient who enters the ED.
“Staffing the ED with medication reconciliation technicians has had a tremendous impact on throughput. It enables our nurses to focus more on direct patient care,” said Sara Lewis, RN, Clinical Informatics Specialist for MHP.
MHP has been able to build on this success by adopting the Expanse Patient Care solution. With an average ED volume of 70 patients per day, and each patient averaging between 5-10 home medications, their time savings has been substantial, freeing technicians up to see more patients.
To measure their progress using quantitative and qualitative data, MHP collaborated with MEDITECH on an advanced usability study. They measured clinical processes pre-implementation and 120 days post to ensure an intuitive workflow and to evaluate the solution’s effectiveness, user satisfaction, and efficiency.
In addition to the overall 30% time savings, the results showed a 28.6% improvement in the average time to reconcile each medication, as well as a significant reduction in clicks and mouse movements. The time savings also translated to improved ED throughput, smoother workflows, and an increase in the number of ED patients whose home medications are verified.
Medication reconciliation technicians also gave Expanse Patient Care an overall usability score of 89, or an “A” – the highest possible ranking for usability and satisfaction.
Providing staff with the latest technology is nothing out of the ordinary for MHP. As an early adopter of Expanse Patient Care, hospital leaders were eager to improve their clinicians’ workflow efficiencies with a web-based solution while helping to shape the direction of the product.
“We’ve been a MEDITECH partner since 1995 and have a great relationship,” said CIO Carol Huesman. “Since our clinicians challenge us to be innovative, we look for the latest, most advanced technologies to support them. As an early adopter of Expanse Patient Care, we had the opportunity to contribute to an agile solution that keeps us on the cutting edge.”
MHP continues on its path as an early adopter for the latest MEDITECH Expanse solutions, including Expanse Oncology and Care Compass.
You can download their full case study and other customer successes on MEDITECH’s Case Study webpage.
