EMR Solution Set
 Download PDF
AHS Application Services
|
Global Works Helps Resurgens Orthopaedics Implement Allscripts EHR and Drive Physician Adoption
"In the past, I had been afraid of the sell-and-run. You know, ‘here's your product, adios, goodbye.' That was my experience with other EHR vendors. But Allscripts' deployment expertise and the great results they've achieved in partnership with Global Works gave me confidence that they knew what they were doing. Today, I'm convinced Allscripts is light years ahead of its competitors, honestly."
Dr. Ken Kress, Orthopaedic Surgeon
The Company
Resurgens Orthopaedics is one of the nation's largest orthopaedic medical groups, with more than 160 providers serving the metropolitan Atlanta community. Formed in 1999, Resurgens provides comprehensive non-surgical and surgical orthopaedic care with board-certified orthopaedic surgeons, board-certified physical medicine and rehabilitation physicians, physician assistants, nurses and spine therapists. Its 20 Atlanta-area clinics include five state-of-the-art surgery centers.
Background
Dr. Ken Kress is as tech savvy as physicians come. A self-proclaimed computer "geek," the orthopaedic surgeon was among the first to recognize that an electronic record could significantly enhance the quality and efficiency of patient care at Resurgens Orthopaedics' sites. In 2004, Kress began testing electronic health records (EHRs) in his own practice. One after another, the EHR vendors failed to provide the basic level of support necessary to get the system implemented, deployed and fully functioning.
Where EHRs were concerned, Kress was quickly becoming gun shy. Still, he believed the point-of-care technology held the key to sharing patient information securely across a far-flung healthcare enterprise. So when Resurgens selected the award-winning TouchWorksTM Electronic Health Record from Allscripts following an exhaustive search, Dr. Kress was both optimistic and fearful.
"In the past, I had been afraid of the sell-and-run," says Kress. "You know, ‘here's your product, adios, goodbye.' That was my experience with other EHR vendors. But Allscripts' deployment expertise and the great results they've achieved in partnership with Global Works gave me confidence that they knew what they were doing. Today, I'm convinced Allscripts is light years ahead of its competitors, honestly."
Unprecedented Levels of Support
The TouchWorks EHR automates vital clinical functions that directly affect a patient's health, including writing and refilling prescriptions, ordering tests, viewing results, documenting care, and checking for harmful drug-allergy interactions. Allscripts builds on that rock-solid foundation by incorporating Six Sigma quality improvements and its proven 3D implementation strategy for the EHR. The approach has helped Allscripts provide rapid implementation to the highest percentage of customers in the industry, radically shortening the time from kick-off to go-live to as little as 30 days.
Global Works EMR Implementation Services are designed for the Allscripts client who is beginning their implementation or has successfully completed their initial implementation and is ready to roll out the solution to their physicians and departments. Global Works Certified Allscripts Consultants deliver a full spectrum of support across the entire deployment – managing and building vital clinical content, training the project team and physician early-adopters, working hand-in-hand with physicians to ensure their mastery of the technology, and showing up in person to support each go-live event.
"Your typical technology consultant can tell you how the system works but Global Works will help you understand in logical, common sense terms not only how it works, but how it will affect your everyday work" says Theresa Crews, Resurgens' Chief Operating Officer and TouchWorks Project Manager. "They are so experienced with Allscripts that they can tell you the outcome to every single design change you might suggest."
"They helped us see outside the box," adds Resurgens' Marketing Director Kathy Scott, who played an integral role in the implementation. "I don't know where we'd be without Global Works."
Modular Deployment Strategy
Deploying an ambulatory EHR to multiple clinics and surgery centers across a large metropolitan area requires an experienced vendor partner. Not only must the system flawlessly deliver real-time access to patient information when and where it is needed - in the exam room, at the hospital or remotely for providers on-call at home - but the vendor must deliver support that is equally flawless.
Allscripts provides physician groups with everything they need to get TouchWorks up and running quickly and effectively. From the early stages of providing guidance on essential design decisions and best-practice workflows, right on through product training and clinical consulting to build on clients' successes, Allscripts works hand in hand with its clients to ensure their success.
As a value-add service complimenting the Allscripts implementation process, Global Works expert on-site implementation support is a critical success factor. Global Works high degree of personalized support is especially important for orthopaedic surgeons, who run exceptionally high-volume practices, typically seeing nearly twice as many patients as general practice MDs. Their heavy workload leaves orthopaedic surgeons highly vulnerable to process changes that can slow them down and take a bite out of their income.
Not surprisingly, Resurgens was wary of an EHR "big-bang" or all-at-once implementation with its steep learning curve. They worried that Resurgens' physicians would have difficulty accepting a sudden paradigm shift in the way they practiced.
Fortunately, the Allscripts product allows an incremental implementation – by provider, department, or location. Functionality can also be stepped out in a modular fashion, starting with infrastructure and continuing through scanning, orders, e-prescribing, results, dictation, notes and charges.
The Resurgens project team favors the incremental approach by location, which mirrors the group's decentralized structure. They deliver as much functionality as possible to one area at a time, let the physicians get comfortable, then add another EHR module. "We wanted to eventually go with a full-blown EHR but we wanted to take it in gradual steps to make it easier on the physicians," explains Scott.
Fast-Track Physicians Drive Adoption
Resurgens' 20-site TouchWorks implementation began early in 2005 with help from Global Works Allscripts-certified senior consultant, Chad Kerr. As the rollout continues, Kerr and other Global Works' consultants work closely with Crews and her team to provide workflow analysis, content building and design, implementation support, and training for physicians in each of Resurgens' 12 regions.
Global Works support helped Resurgens overcome one of the toughest challenges that clinics face in implementing an EHR -- driving physician acceptance of the new technology. Global Works believes that clinical users can overcome their resistance and attain further success when they understand how the EHR can be tailored to suit their needs. That's why the consultants' most important role has been training and supporting Resurgens' core team of early adopters, the so-called "fast-track" physicians whose approval is critical to the EHR's success. Global Works consultants work with fast-trackers from each region and sub-specialty to ensure that every new module of TouchWorks is properly designed and vetted before being deployed to other physicians.
"No matter how good the training is, you don't really know how to use the system until you start using it yourself," says Dr. Kress. "Chad will come in and give a class to the doctors but then, once they start using it, he will come back and write the code with them for templates. It is huge, having that kind of in-person support."
The Personal Touch
Currently, all 160 of Resurgens' providers can access a shared medical record electronically via TouchWorks, and by April 2006 Crews expects half of them will be using structured Notes. By merging Resurgens' insightful fast-track, modular approach with Global Works services, orthopaedic patients throughout the Atlanta area are reaping the rewards of the TouchWorks best-of-breed EHR.
Crews attributes Resurgens' success in large part to Global Works ability to expertly manage the fears and expectations of its large workforce. "Global Works consultants have great, great interpersonal skills"
says Crews. "When you come into a big practice like ours, with 700 employees, you've got to be able to deal with the ones who just love the EHR and the ones who think it's the worst idea we ever had. Their consultants have the skills to deal with all those multiple personalities so that, in the end, everyone is working together as a team for the success of the project."
It's no accident that the TouchWorks EHR has become known as "the safe choice" for ambulatory clinical automation. As the Resurgens' experience shows, no other EHR vendor works as smart or as hard to deliver value for physician groups. In the end, the difference comes down to this: Every member of the Allscripts and Global Works teams work passionately day in and day out to provide clients with the best electronic health records solution in the industry. Settling for less than perfection just isn't an option.
|
