Case Study
Cardiology IT Solutions Solve Workflow Issues
Summary
New reporting features within cardiology IT solutions helped North Mississippi Medical Center build an innovative user experience and workflows, with their cardiology team able to access reports from anywhere, anytime. This allowed their physicians and technologists to benefit from easier, faster, and more accurate data consumption and data-entry processes, while also empowering their users to easily control and manipulate their reporting applications.
Customer
North Mississippi Medical Center
Challenge
The medical center was struggling with long report turnaround times, inefficient workflows, challenges managing data and documentation, and inadequate reimbursement processes.
Solution
Change Healthcare Cardiology™ with Echo, Cath, EP, Hemo, and ECG Solutions
Results
- Improved report turnaround times, reducing the number of reports needing to be sorted by more than 90%.
- Echo pediatric-report revisions reduced by 14%.
- Echo fetal-report adoption by 100% of physicians.
- Improvement in solution load and exit metrics.
I feel Change Healthcare Cardiology is the best system out there at this time
-Post implementation survey feedback, October 2023
North Mississippi Medical Center (NMMC) provides acute, diagnostic, therapeutic, and emergency services and is dedicated to being a provider of top patient- and family-centered care.
NMMC’s staff was struggling with long report turnaround times, which slowed diagnoses and hindered patient care.They were searching for a faster, more secure cardiology system to help streamline their workflows and, in turn, provide faster diagnoses and the best patient care possible.
Change Healthcare Cardiology’s new reporting features helped NMMC build an innovative user experience and workflows, with their cardiology team able to access reports from anywhere, anytime. This allowed their physicians and technologists to benefit from easier, faster, and more accurate data-consumption and data-entry processes while also empowering their users to easily control and manipulate their reporting applications.
NMMC leveraged the Change Healthcare Cardiology single-database design to undertake an upgrade to help increase its focus on quality outcomes and workflow efficiency, reduce human errors and manual workflows, and maximize its investment in the EMR.
Inefficient Workflows, Data Management, and Security
North Mississippi Medical Center was seeking a way to enhance patient care by maximizing diagnosis efficiency and improving their current workflows. Plus, they needed a way to keep up with the high pace of technology and platform updates and End of life, all while keeping customer data secure.
The cardiology market landscape is changing rapidly. Providers need a true partner who will work with them to provide high-level cardiovascular imaging solutions to address their needs.
“The most important consideration in choosing a new cardiology system is to make sure it integrates with every system in your facility, whether it’s purchasing, physician reporting, or your charting system,” said Carla Durham, nurse manager.
As a key partner with Change Healthcare, NMMC was selected as a beta site for the latest version of Change Healthcare Cardiology™.
Anywhere access to all imaging, analysis, and reporting
Change Healthcare Cardiology 15.0 allowed NMMC to tailor their workflows to support every site, facility, and procedure subtype, providing faster onboarding and greater flexibility at scale.
Upgrading NMMC’s system to the new version provided a significant improvement in imaging operations. They are now able to:
- Utilize the new HTML5 reporting platform for pediatrics and congenital echo workflows.
- Help improve their clinical efficiency with the tighter viewer-report connection.
- Enjoy better performance and a higher level of security.
The new echo pediatric and fetal workflows on a new reporting platform were adopted by 100% of physicians. This complete clinical and technological overhaul provided a more clinically sound and efficient diagnostic workflow.
“The adult side has been great, and the new fetal and peds is great. We have not had any issues with the new reports. It seems like it’s allowed us to be a little quicker getting our reports sent to the doctor,” said Katie Mounce, echocardiography supervisor.
NMMC has also utilized the new capabilities to map the structured measurements in the report to the exact image it was taken from, supporting an easier and quicker navigation and connectivity between the report and the viewer.
“In the cath lab, structured reporting is the most important feature in today’s imaging environment,” said Durham.
Along with clinical and interoperability enhancements, the upgrade includes new demonstrable cyberresilience measures, including multilayered security enhancements for servers and hemo/HAC/NCS workstations, as well as improved network security, data protection, and threat and incident response.
By implementing Change Healthcare Cardiology’s technology platform, NMMC has provided their entire care team with anywhere access to all imaging, analysis, and reporting. After implementation, the team was surveyed about the new technology and services.
“I feel Change Healthcare Cardiology is the best system out there at this time.” – NMMC survey respondent
Improved turnaround times with a platform built for faster data consumption
NMMC experienced significant clinical enhancements utilizing the new features, such as the “Take Me to the Image” tool, which allows them to navigate from the measurements in the report directly to the images the measurements were taken from. The platform allows users to navigate from imported DSR measurements, offline measurements, or protocols. The system takes you to the first available corresponding image in the viewer.
“One feature the team enjoys is now they can flag the reports as stat or ASAP or routine, and instead of being sent 15 studies and having to read them in the order that they came in, the new system shows them … you need to read study number 7 first, then study number 3 second,” Mounce said. “I feel like that’s really helped the workflow. We’re not waiting on this stat reports as long.”
quick and immediate access to images, complete patient-and-study data, as well as comprehensive and customizable reporting software in one location, clinician diagnosis can be expeditated to assure more informed decisions are made for better patient care.
Report templating and customization have also been improved, enabling administrators to find the right balance between consistency across the enterprise and the unique needs of each facility. Instead of a lengthy customization process, physicians can get what they want much faster.
“It seems like with echo and vascular, it’s become easier to customize the reports,” says Ginger Loague, clinical analyst.
By listening to the needs and feedback of North Mississippi Health Services, Change Healthcare was able to bring new features to market that will have a notable impact on the way providers operate. Change Healthcare Cardiology will continue to evolve, helping health systems meet their enterprise imaging needs for clinical quality, operational excellence, and financial growth.