frontrange

Kevin_Smith_5390_crp

Kevin Smith, Vice President & General Manager, Cloud Business Unit, FrontRange, says:

EMR Change Management

As many of you know, regulations put in place by the HITECH Act of 2009 mandate that all medical records must be made completely electronic by 2016.  And healthcare organizations are scrambling to find solutions that will interoperate with their existing information technology systems without having to spend a fortune or undergo the nightmare of a rip and replace operation. A key challenge healthcare organizations face as they make the transition from manual paper-based approaches to automated electronic medical record (EMR) systems—estimated to be a $3.8 billion market—is the ability to achieve “meaningful use”— a series of core objectives that must be met by the fast-approaching 2016 deadline imposed by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  Non-compliance with these complex requirements can directly impact the profitability of healthcare organizations as a result of significant fines, loss of monetary incentives and a curtailment of government reimbursements for Medicaid and Medicare payments, which can account for up to 50% of all revenue for some healthcare providers.

This is where FrontRange’s newly announced HEAT Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Change Management solution comes in. Our EMR change management solution is specifically designed to help healthcare organizations address this imposing challenge as they transition to an EMR system, upgrade, or replace an existing EMR system. Integrating healthcare industry best practices, the HEAT EMR Change Management platform enables healthcare organizations to fully automate and meet demanding regulatory compliance requirements mandated by the HITECH Act for Healthcare organizations implementing EMR software systems.

Available as a cloud-based, on-premise, or hybrid offering to maximize flexibility in deployment, the HEAT EMR Change Management platform reduces the complexity associated with the deployment, operation and maintenance of an EMR software system.  The platform uniquely integrates healthcare industry best practices that automate the management and documentation of EMR costs, budgeting and workflow analysis during the pre and post deployment phase, EMR change requests, and ongoing IT EMR software support and operations.

To accommodate the operations phase of an EMR implementation, the HEAT Change Management solution enforces compliance and security requirements by automating the management of in-process changes to systems that report through the EMR system.  This secures patient records during the transition from paper-based to electronic file formats.  It also helps define what information can be shared and determines external vendor access to health records.

Enhancing the maintenance phase of an EMR implementation, the HEAT Change Management solution enables healthcare organizations to automate ongoing EMR changes required by new government mandates.  This will assist healthcare staff working across disparate departments to better understand EMR change requirements and accelerate issue resolution times in order for caregivers to focus on providing premium care without being burdened by new and unfamiliar EMR software systems.

Featuring a next-generation visual workflow editor, fully integrated voice automation and comprehensive client management capabilities, the HEAT EMR Change Management platform maximizes operational efficiencies while reducing total cost of ownership.  By integrating service management and client management capabilities, the HEAT platform enables users to easily request an EMR service or change, automatically deploys those changes to end users and monitors compliance and service level agreements.

Our HEAT EMR Change Management solution provides a high level of process automation, unified management and compliance enforcement which form the foundation for efficient and effective IT services and yield improved end-user productivity. Benefits of this solution include:

Maximized Operational Efficiency

  • Reduced time on EMR package development by up to 85 percent
  • Reduced time spent on EMR application deployment by up to 95 percent

Reduced IT Costs

  • Reduced purchases of unneeded EMR hardware/software by 50 percent
  • Reduced number of on-site engineer visits by up to 99 percent
  • Reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) costs by up to 70 percent

Improved Service Quality and Compliance

  • Reduced compliance risk by up to 80 percent
  • Reduced EMR software troubleshooting efforts by up to 85 percent
  • Improved overall customer satisfaction by reducing the mean time to repair (MTTR) by up to 75 percent