Published: July 31, 2008 12:00 am      

Fox's ER gets tech upgrade

ONEONTA _ Doctors and nurses in the emergency room at A.O. Fox Memorial Hospital are keeping their eyes on a new tracking board.

As a result, nurses said, patients will be seen more quickly and be better informed about who will see them and when.

"Patient satisfaction and safety are utmost,'' Josephine Russo, a registered nurse who worked on developing the system, said Thursday. The tracking board, recently installed as part of a $7 million project, gives snapshots of what is happening in the 15-bed emergency department, she said.

Staff started using the ER tracking board July 15 and the Horizon Physician Portal computer records system July 21, Fox officials said.

At a glance at the 42-inch computerized board, a doctor or nurse can tell a patient's complaint or injury, room assignment, whether lab or X-rays have been completed and how long a patient has been waiting. At about noon Thursday, the board reported one person had been in the waiting room 15 minutes and nine patients had been seen and assigned to beds for further care.

Colored areas on the board report time factors, and a ``To Do'' category lists medical orders. To preserve confidentiality, only a patient's first name is posted. Other symbols indicate if a task has been done or if a condition needs immediate attention.

For details, a health-care provider goes to a nearby computer to retrieve files holding test results, patient history, allergies and other data. The portal is Internet-based, allowing access to medical websites.

``The providers have fingertip access,'' Russo said.

And after discharge or admission to the 100-bed hospital, the patient's name moves off the board.

``It gives us a better way to keep track of patients,'' said Erika Thetford, a registered nurse who works in the emergency department. ``It's going to get patients in and out of here, hopefully, quicker.''

Fox has worked with McKesson Provider Technologies, of Alpharetta, Ga., on the system.

Bassett Healthcare of Cooperstown initiated a $17 million electronic medical records project in 2006. That system was developed through a partnership with Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn.

The EMR, a Web-based infrastructure, is critically important to an organization like Bassett, said spokeswoman Karen Huxtable. Bassett serves patients at the hospital and clinic in Cooperstown, as well as at 25 health centers in eight counties. Applications continue to be developed and project completion is expected in 2010, she said.

Fox officials said the electronic medical records system will reduce paper files, speed access to information and eliminate the need for patients to carry records between hospital departments or facilities. Doctors, nurses and other health-care workers can communicate electronically about treatments, reducing telephone calls and questions about a patient's status and whereabouts.

Russo said the average visit to the Fox emergency room for a patient who is discharged is 3 to 31/2 hours, and the hospital aims to reduce that by 30 minutes through the tracking system. For a patient who is admitted, the process takes about four hours, she said, and that is targeted for a 15-minute reduction within six months.

Previously, staff wrote names and data on a board. Staff had to check paper charts for more information, said Nancy Hendrickson, a registered nurse and director of nursing for the emergency department, which has about 50 employees. Using the electronic board ``makes things a lot quicker,'' she said.

The systems are created with backup capacities in case of computer failure, officials said, and staff can temporarily ``drop back'' to paper records if needed and update files later.

A patient can see providers at different locations _ FoxNow urgent-care center on Southside, Fox Hospital downtown, FoxCare Center on state Route 7, Capitol Cardiology Associates in Albany _ and each site can access records in the system. That wasn't possible six months ago, according to Donna Schultes, director of clinical informatics and a registered nurse.

Fox spokeswoman Maggie Barnes said the $7 million investment covers project costs, including computer hardware, software, consultants and other expenses. The costs are being met with grants, reserve funds and financing, she said, and the result of upgrading computer systems might be invisible to patients.

The technology has been used most in larger hospitals with 300 to 400 beds, McKesson officials said. They said Fox is the 594th hospital to acquire the Physician Portal, and implementation began in March. The project is to be complete in 2011.