Removes Paper and Hassle from Patient Registration with Access Electronic Patient Signatures

March 14, 2014 - PRLog -- As at most hospitals, the patient registration department at Harnett Health System used a lot of paper. The associated financial and productivity costs motivated the hospital to transition from obtaining ink signatures on preprinted forms to capturing electronic patient signatures on e-forms. After evaluating several vendors, Harnett Health chose Access (http://www.accessefm.com/), which made a good impression from the get-go.

“Access was very involved in the project from the beginning,” said Ruskin Davis, Patient Access Manager at Harnett Health. “They helped us create the forms we needed, which is a huge benefit for time-strapped organizations that don’t have the resources to do that.”

Now, a registrar sets up a patient in MEDITECH and clicks a button to generate a customized e-forms packet that has patient demographics from MEDITECH already filled in (http://www.accessefm.com/meditech). The patient then completes the remaining form fields and applies a secure electronic signature to each document using a tablet. The new process benefits patients and staff alike.

“With Access’s electronic signature and e-forms suite, we’ve reduced registration time by one to three minutes — and with over 380 registrations a day — that equals a big time savings,” Davis said. “Registrars don’t have to leave patients to find and copy forms anymore, which increases satisfaction.”

In addition to saving time for patients and registrars, the Access solution also helps the hospital save money and reduce its environmental impact.

“We’re using between 300 and 500 fewer sheets of paper per day now that we’ve switched to electronic forms,” Davis said. “When you factor in the reduced work involved in forms processing, that represents a significant cost savings and helps our green initiative.”

For Harnett Health to bill for the services its clinicians deliver, all required documentation must be present in the patient’s chart, and each of these documents must be complete. The Access system helps Harnett Health meet this need.

“With the Access solution, we have the appropriate documentation needed to file a claim and can confirm that there’s a valid electronic patient signature on each consent,” Davis said. “This not only helps us meet CMS compliance requirements, but also prevents denials and lost revenue.”

Harnett Health has also integrated Access’s clinical content bridge with MEDITECH Scanning and Archiving module to capture output from the ScottCare cardiac rehab telemetry system, convert it into a standardized format, and send it into the correct patient’s EHR (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0o6nMpRvOLU)— no paper or user effort required.



“With the Access and MEDITECH solution, we get notes and other output from our ScottCare telemetry system into the patient record without a time-consuming, paper-based process,” said Rebecca Absher, Physical Therapist for Cardiac Care. “Now we’re able to use the EHR effectively with our cardiac care system.”

About Harnett Health System
Harnett Health Betsy Johnson Hospital is a private not-for-profit, 151-bed hospital located in Dunn, North Carolina. The hospital is committed to being the acute care health facility in its region, where services are provided in a caring environment in a manner that reflects quality, innovation and value.

About Access
Hundreds of hospitals worldwide use paperless Access solutions to integrate e-forms, electronic patient signatures and clinical data into EHRs. Access helps improve care, eliminate financial and environmental costs and enhance patient safety and downtime planning initiatives. Learn more at http://www.accessefm.com