Tablet Diabetes Management Solution with MEDITECH
Background
Kershaw County Medical Center (KCMC) is comprised of a 121-bed acute care facility, 88-bed long-term facility, health resource center and a home health/hospice facility serving the Camden, South Carolina community. KCMC provides an innovative diabetes self-management program that helps patients better manage the disease through better lifestyle choices and proper diabetes care.
This program used several detailed paper assessment forms to gauge a patient’s current health and progress. By recording and tracking this information, patients worked with clinicians to develop a plan that reduced the need for expensive hospital care and improved quality of life.
Challenge
According to Amy Kinard, Director of Education at KCMC, one of the most challenging aspects of running the diabetes self management program was maximizing the time that nurses spent providing care while ensuring that they continue to gather valuable and accurate information. Amy’s nursing staff was required to fill out multiple paper assessment forms including:
- Diabetes Pre-Assessment – a questionnaire about lifestyle, nutrition, physical activity used to calculate health scores
- Diabetes Post-Assessment – a similar questionnaire that measures the patient’s health score
- Diabetes Program Initial Assessment - a comprehensive medical assessment that includes the type of diabetes, the patient’s dietary habits, medical history, allergic reactions, education, etc.
- Diabetes Program Medications - used to collect information on all the medications being taken by a patient
- Diabetes Program Participant Flow Sheet Outcomes.- the primary vehicle for gauging a patient’s progress, this form collects vitals like BP,
- temperature, weight, height, BMI at preassessment/3-months/6-months/9-12 months
- Diabetes ED Patient Education Record - assigns goals for patient outcome
- Diabetes ED Progress Notes - notes from each visit
“This process was inadequate because the documentation was handwritten or recorded in an Excel spreadsheet that could not easily be shared with other caregivers,” explains Amy. “Therefore, it required duplicate recordkeeping as well as scanning of handwritten documents.” KCMC recognized the need to upgrade and streamline this process and began to research the latest technology to support their assessment needs. Solution
Interested in recording information via tablet PC, Amy worked with Diane Arrants, Director of Information Technology at KCMC to find a solution that would meet their needs. After significant research, they turned to Mi-Co and their technology partner, Logical Progression, a leading developer of tablet PC solutions for healthcare.
Using Mi-Co’s core technology, Logical Progression designed and implemented an electronic forms solution on tablet PC that allows the nurses to interface directly with KCMC’s MEDITECH Imaging and Therapeutic Services (ITS) at the point of care.
Phase One
In the first phase of implementation, KCMC converted their forms to electronic templates with the Mi-Forms Designer and pre-filled their Mi-Forms templates with patient demographic using an NPR XML feed from MEDITECH. From within MEDITECH, nurses launch the electronic form via a simple menu on the patient’s file. Each form contains powerful validation rules that ensure all required fields are captured at the point of care, including required signatures, before the forms can be submitted. The forms also provide automatic calculations and hotspots for the nurses to query previous visit information and save new visit data to a SQL Server database (e.g., Progress Notes). PDFs of the completed forms are generated on a shared network folder for archiving purposes.
Phase Two
After phase one, a requirement remained to create an outbound interface from Mi-Forms back to the MEDITECH ITS. Logical Progression designed an interface to capture discrete report data from the diabetes assessment forms and transfer it directly to MEDITECH ITS. Logical Progression created a set of components and utilized the Mi-Forms SDK to enable Mi-Forms to directly interface with MEDITECH. A MEDITECH report is compiled with the collected data, packaged into an ORU HL7 message and submitted back to MEDITECH ITS. This information is stored on the patient’s medical record and is available for viewing from within MEDITECH. Each report is automatically indexed by patient MRN and Document ID. Results
The nursing staff now uses Mi-Forms version 6.1 on a Gateway M275 tablet PC to electronically capture diabetes assessment data and immediately store it in KCMC’s electronic medical record, MEDITECH ITS. “We are very impressed with our new tablet PC solution and with our partners in this project, Logical Progression and Mi-Co. The solution has revolutionized our processes, and Logical Progression and Mi-Co’s expertise and commitment to excellence was greatly appreciated,” says Amy. She also added, “Patient information is more easily shared with other caregivers and time is saved by eliminating the need for duplicate entry and scanning of documents -- ultimately, providing better patient care.” Amy feels that this solution is “another example of KCMC’s commitment to enhanced medical services, advanced technology, progressive therapies.” Future Plans
Now that Logical Progression has made seamless MEDITECH integration a reality for KCMC, Diane is planning to expand the program into other departments at the hospital. Diane explains, “I’m currently looking at ways the system could be utilized in the hospital’s home health division. I would also like to use report data to easily generate list and/or counts for regulatory and marketing purposes.” Benefits Technology About Logical Progression
Logical Progression is a software company specializing in Tablet PC-based electronic data collection and healthcare interfacing solutions. With over 20 years of experience in healthcare, mobile data capture and electronic forms, Logical Progression is an innovator in the healthcare Tablet PC market, building ink-friendly and intuitive user experiences. Logical Ink, the company’s core product, is a mobile data collection solution for healthcare that generates an electronic chart of forms pre-filled via HL7 and seamlessly integrates with the EMR without redundant data entry or form scanning. The company is based in Cary, NC. For more information, visit www.logicalink.com. About Mi-Co
Mi-Co, the mobile data capture company, provides enterprise software to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire process of capturing and using data. Mi-Co's end-to-end Mi-Forms Software System enables the capture, handwriting verification and communication of forms based and free-form pen-on-paper data for enterprise users. Mi-Forms supports data capture using the Tablet PC’s, Digital Pens, Pocket PC’s and signature capture devices. Mi-Co's vertical markets for the Mi-Forms Software include healthcare and pharmaceuticals, public safety, and governmental services, and Mi-Co has a growing number of customers in these segments. Mi-Co is headquartered in RTP, NC with a west coast office in Seattle, WA. For more information, visit www.mi-corporation.com. |
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