Health Services Records Management

Going Paperless, Ensuring Privacy in Busy Healthcare Provider Workplaces

The health service industry’s long retention requirements and sheer magnitude of paperwork present both the biggest challenges as well the most successful solutions. Global Archives assists clients by creating paperless infrastructures and eliminating  paper records of patient charts and billing transactions. Government regulation mandated that all classes of health care professional service providers become compliant with an Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system by 2014 to avoid disruption of Medicare and Medicaid payment cycles and Global Archives was there to assist.

Global Archives’ customers in the health service industry are typically very busy, high-volume patient care and surgical practices with up to 500 transactions per week. The Center for Orthopedics Sports of Beverly Hills, California realized that going “paperless” meant much more than reducing paper storage facilities and consolidating closed patient records into an electronic storage cabinet.

Global Archives’ cloud-based, Software as a Service data management solutions include specialized data capture software and a Document Management System (DMS). Global Archives’ data governance strategies help health services practices gain control over their most time-consuming, expensive back-office functions. Scanning legacy paper documents while capturing data and tagging each document with barcode-based searchable tags reduces paper storage costs and consolidates file size. This serves to reduce operating costs and streamline administrative tasks.

Ensuring Data Management Efficiency and Regulatory Compliance

The challenge met by Global Archives was to provide The Center for Orthopedic Sports with products and services so they could reach full compliance and optimal data management efficiency. The objective for Global Archives was to deploy solutions with all the features of an in-house system, while ensuring that costs are fixed and reasonable on a “Pay-As-You-Go” basis. Its cloud-based, Software as a Service model, LockBox, fills the need for both compliance and efficiency.

Appreciating the benefits of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) for managing their legacy files, fast-paced care centers soon demanded that electronic images from testing be converted along with paper documents. Simultaneously, management realized that controlling the flow of patient and transaction data improved overall office efficiencies and reduced costs. To be really effective, however, documents needed to be in a “user friendly” format and easily accessible via an online portal. This then allows documents to be quickly found, managed, and shared with colleagues (both internally, and in many cases, outside the practice).

Electronic Healthcare Records Solutions for Small, Medium Practices

Unlike larger facilities with more IT staff and budgets, many small- to mid- size practices find the implementation of an Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) systems to be impractical and significantly more costly than their workload and budget allow. In addition to substantial IT support and sophisticated server hardware and software, a practice must contend with special workflow programming to “move” the charts  as patients progress through all of their visits.

The Center for Orthopedics Sports was in a dilemma after two unsuccessful attempts to install different EHR systems. Other EHR vendors “failed to support, did not customize for their application and oversold the solution”, says LeeAnn Morrell, assistant to Dr. Krietenberg. LeeAnn contacted Global Archives which recommended a pilot program using LockBox. In view of The Center’s recent challenges in implementing new systems, Global Archives established a “step-by-step” process that minimized disruption of daily operations.

Global Archives began its site audit with staff interviews that defined the process and implementation schedule, budget, and Return on Investment calculation for The Center’s management. The company built test suites to demonstrate how its Data Management System (DMS) could work, and the processes necessary to implement it. Global Archives designed a master database structure to incorporate not only the current office workflow, but also future processes. Production work first began by converting all legacy charts and setting retention schedules so that charts may be retired within designated time frames. “Day forward” work followed, resulting in the practice maintaining only the previous six months of patient visits instead of the previous 10 years. Prior to teaming with Global Archives, The Center’s management and owners were unaware of what the paper charts were costing in storage and in repetitive handling.

Global Archives also developed electronic versions of most frequently used forms to simplify front office and examining room patient transaction charts. These eForms securely link charts to The Center’s billing system to auto populate key demographics of the patient, and include comment sections for staff and attending physicians. The charts then automatically upload to LockBox without the need for costly chart preparation, and are accessible from staff workstations that are each connected to LockBox.

Global Archives exceeded the ROI targets required by The Center. In providing data governance and document management services to The Center, Global Archives not only met their immediate needs but continued to incorporate and customize new processes designed to improve workflow.

“Global Archives came in and listened to what we had to say and needed. They did what they said they would do, on time and budget. Global Archives provided timely support and helped us to start to become compliant.” – LeeAnn Morrell.