CHCC to further improve technology systems this year

After working on shortening the wait time for medical records and billings last year, the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. is now focused on improving its technology systems this year, according to chief executive officer Esther Muña.

Throughout fiscal year 2014, CHCC’s Corporate Health Information Technology department made numerous improvements on how health information is utilized throughout the health care system in the CNMI, specifically the Electronic Health Record system.

EHR helps the hospital by making medical information readily available and secure for authorized users at the hospital.

It is now being utilized in the Kagman Community Health Center, the hospital’s inpatient wards, outpatient clinics, laboratory department, pharmacy department, and the emergency department.

Muña said that CHCC will look into further improving its technology systems this year.

Both the Tinian and Rota Health Centers have yet to have their EHR fully implemented but that is now being worked on.

“Tinian and Rota will subsequently have EHR-live early calendar year 2015,” Muña said.

Last year, from late July to early August, CHCC collaborated with the University of Hawaii to do a test run on Tinian and Rota to determine the strength of the network capabilities. The found an issue in the “strength and viability of the Internet connection.”

“Tinian and Rota were included in the plans for EHR implementation but with a priority to meet ‘meaningful use’ stage 2 for the hospital, it was necessary to prioritize the Commonwealth Health Center and especially since ‘meaningful use’ incentive payment assists in the funding of EHR implementation for Tinian and Rota,” Muña said.

Established by the Centers for Medicaid and Medical Services, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 authorized CMS to provide financial incentives to eligible professionals and hospitals that demonstrate “meaningful use” of certified EHR technology under two programs: the Medicare Incentive program or the Medicaid incentive program.

This allowed CHC to participate in the incentive program by ensuring health quality and patient safety of the EHR systems through phases and receive payment assistance.

EHR was implemented in phases, with the first phase focusing on implementing documentation such as vital signs, nursing and physician notes, and medication administration records, among others. This was done in November 2013.

In 2013, CHC got $1.4 million as an incentive after it demonstrated “meaningful use” of the EHR system and became the first in the Pacific territories to implement EHR and receive incentives under the program.

The second phase focused on transitioning the laboratory department away from the previous system it once used and the third phase focused on implementing computerized physician order entry for medication, laboratory, admission and discharge instructions.

Other advancements

The EHR system’s implementation opened doors to other improvements, Muña said.

“CHCC providers enrolled in the Medicaid EHR incentive program and received $128,000 in incentives specifically for eligible providers. In addition, electronic data interchange testing was completed to facilitate electronic billing for accepting payers,” Muña said.

“This was huge as prior to electronic billing, claims were submitted by paper or online after already entering billing and demographic information in the resource patient management system computer program…it created redundancy and delayed payment…However, Aetna Insurance and Medicare has completed testing and is currently in production while Staywell Insurance is awaiting production,” she added.

One other project includes archiving through a technological system called Laserfische. While EHR is implemented, older medical records may still need to be accessible to the provider and also protected.

“It is still ongoing and once completed, digitized documents and procedures in the Human Resources department and Finance and Accounting departments will provide a more efficient process throughout the administrative programs,” Muna said.