Mile Bluff Medical Center now live with MEDITECH Expanse search and summarization powered by Google Health

Mile Bluff Medical Center (Mauston, WI) just took a significant step forward in reducing clinician burdens by going live with MEDITECH’s new AI-powered Expanse search and summarization capabilities powered by Google Health. This functionality is now improving workflow and efficiency for the more than 150 users in the pilot program, who have access across the health center’s care network, including the hospital, outpatient clinics, ambulatory, ED, and urgent care.

MEDITECH’s search and summarization capabilities, embedded into Mile Bluff’s Expanse EHR, leverage natural language processing to intelligently pull information from structured and unstructured data, including scanned documents, faxes, and legacy data. Mile Bluff’s Expanse EHR uses Google Health’s advanced summarization capabilities to synthesize and organize this data, giving clinicians timely and intuitive access to a more holistic view of patients and their conditions.

“Our providers saw an immediate impact upon going live with the search and summarization functionality,” explains Randy Brandt, PA-C, a primary care physician assistant and team lead for the project. “They appreciated how they can launch the functionality directly from their Expanse Chart Viewer to get a complete longitudinal view of their patients. Providers were intuitively using the section breakdown within hours of going live to review their provider notes. The solution is already helping to improve their workflow and efficiency.”

Mile Bluff went live with pilot groups over the last several months before completing their full pilot-phase rollout the week of January 23rd. With MEDITECH and Google Health staff on hand for at-the-elbow support, the team built a strong foundation of front-line clinician leaders who were eager to showcase the solution for their colleagues and clinical teams. These efforts led to an additional 20 users joining the pilot group after witnessing the solution's immediate impact on their colleagues’ workflow.

“I used to spend about 15 minutes per patient cleaning up problem lists, especially for new patients or patients transferred to me from other providers,” explained CMO Angela Gatzke-Plamann, MD. “The search and summarization functionality will help me cut this time down significantly.”

The impact of the new AI functionality is resonating across all departments and care settings, including the OB, outreach clinics, pharmacies, infusion centers, wound care, and the ED.

“Patients come into the ER, and they aren’t always the best historians. When I ask what medications they take, they say, ‘I take the sugar pill, the water pill, the little red pill, etc.’ If I ask them about their medical history, they tell me that they see the doctor in the clinic next door, so ‘you can just look it up on the computer, right?’” says Dr. Joseph Lachica. 

“This search and summarization tool is powerful. Instead of spending hours or days requesting and sifting through several hundred pages of a patient’s record, this can be done in minutes. It distills the information into something usable at the moment that makes an immediate difference in what I do for this patient.”

ED technician Meg Devito added, “I searched for a DNR, and it pulled up the scanned document, and I found it right away. It saved us that day in the ER.”

Physicians are not the only ones benefiting. Kayla Bilek, who works in the HIM department, sees the functionality paying immediate dividends. “I am tasked with reviewing hundreds of pages of discharge summaries and scanned documents from other sites each day,” she says. “This functionality is going to transform my entire workflow.”

Other departments, like Infection Control, have also signed onto the pilot. “Instead of having to take the time to conduct lengthy chart reviews, the solution gives us the capability to confirm patient conditions like sepsis, surgical site infection, or hospital-acquired infection within minutes,” explained Director of Infection Control Brenda Totzke. “This allows us to more smoothly ensure we provide the best care to our patients while giving us the accurate data we need to submit to national organizations like CMS.”

Brandt sees the ability to search scanned documents and advanced handwritten text detection as game changers for the organization. “We no longer have to read lengthy handwritten notes, which was a significant burden for our providers,” he explains. “Now we can quickly search scanned documents for the precise data needed and copy and paste this discrete data into our documentation.”

Mile Bluff continues to explore unique use cases for search and summarization, including support with chart preparation and abstracting. 

“There’s been a lot of hype about AI in the industry, but it's not until you put that functionality into action that you see the immense impact this technology can have on the staff,” said President & CEO Dara Bartels. “When you can make your staff's lives easier by more efficiently surfacing the right data at the right point in the workflow to provide more precise patient care, it's a win for everyone.”

Join us on Wednesday, March 13, from 1:15 pm - 1:45 pm at the HIMSS 24 Main Stage Theater, where MEDITECH Executive Vice President and COO Helen Waters joins Google Cloud Global Director of Healthcare Strategy and Solutions Aashima Gupta for their session, “Radical Collaboration: MEDITECH, Google, and the Intelligent EHR.” After the session, stop by MEDITECH booth #2580 for a coffee hour and a 2:30 pm demonstration with MEDITECH, Google Health, and Randy Brandt.