Summary

Lehigh Valley Health Network (LVHN) is one of the largest facilities in Pennsylvania with three clinical campuses - two in Allentown and one in Bethlehem. Founded as Allentown Hospital in 1899, it is one of the largest and oldest teaching Hospitals in the state.

Lehigh Valley Health Network's professional staff of more than 1,100 physicians embraces innovation and understands the impact broad thinking can have on medical care. Working in over 50 specialties, LVHN physicians, along with hundreds of skilled nurses and other professionals, help take research, diagnostics and patient-centered care in exciting new directions. The Hospital is recognized as a leading regional source in key clinical areas. LVHN has been ranked twelve straight years by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top providers in the nation.

The Challenge

With 10,000 employees, Lehigh Valley Health Network is a $1 billion dollar business, giving back over $70 million to the communities they serve in free and discounted healthcare, community partnerships and educational programs.

Enterprise Content Management Needs

Lehigh Valley Health Network has a strong commitment to the use of information technology and has been recognized as one of the "100 Most Wired" facilities by an American Hospital Association survey.

"Technology in healthcare has no value unless it directly or indirectly supports patient care," Harry Lukens, Lehigh Valley Health Network CIO says. "Recognition represents our commitment to using technology as an enabler of patient care. The right technology in the hands of our caregivers can and does make them more efficient and enhances patient safety."
(source: http://www.lvh.org/lvh/careers%7C823)

As technological innovations with electronic imaging made documents and healthcare records more easily accessible to a wider range of Hospital staff, individual departments were beginning to learn about cutting edge technology with the expectation of utilizing it in their respective areas. Many departments were beginning to express an interest in how the technology could improve workflow. In addition, the large quantity of traditional paper records were also requiring significant storage space on-site as well as the expense of archiving paper records off-site.

Different departments within the Lehigh Valley Health Network had already begun to implement document software solutions. Unfortunately, as isolated systems that were unique to specific areas of the Hospital, there was no cross platform compatibility or data exchange. It was critical for the Hospital to establish communication between departments with complimentary services and employ one system that met the needs of all and could handle the volume of such a large operation.

The Process

Lehigh Valley Health Network understood that improving their business processes would translate into better healthcare and needed to find a single document management product that would meet the broadest range of applications. The Hospital formed a 23 member committee to find a "universal imaging" solution. The goal was to identify the smallest number of software providers to do everything required.

"We were looking to implement a "Universal Imaging" solution that would allow us to offer the technology to a wide variety of departments. We specifically looked for features such as Workflow, OCR, COLD, Faxing, importing a large variety of native file formats, and the ability to scan a variety of different sizes and qualities of paper (receipts to blueprints)," said Randy Bankes, Associate Director, Information Services.

At the time, IMR had already been working with Lehigh Valley Health Network, providing back file conversion and scanning systems to different areas of the Hospital. IMR's team met with the Hospital's IT staff to define the requirements for the universal system and explore solution options.

Because the operation of a Hospital is more specialized than most other business models, IMR staff worked diligently to fully understand the Hospital's precise needs, capabilities and concerns.

IMR's approach of addressing the big picture in formulating a solution, resulted in being unanimously selected by the Hospital committee. Since then, IMR has taken on the role of trusted document management advisor.

The Initial Solution

IMR began the work by identifying six departments (including Materials Management, Risk Management and Medical Staff Services) and assessing what solution applications would best meet the privacy and security requirements of the Hospital. It was critical that the document management solution comply with all HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) privacy and security requirements for the confidential patient information.

In order to provide cross platform compatibility and data exchange among the different software packages being used in various areas of the Hospital, IMR integrated Hyland's OnBase solution. The OnBase core module, along with additional modules designed to meet specific operational needs, provided the right amount of automation and departmental integration for a successful implementation at Lehigh Valley Health Network .

IMR's document management solution has included scanning solutions and back file conversion to bring older files into the new electronic system. A big part of the success of the implementation has been the education and training provided by IMR to improve use and system adoption by the Hospital's employees.

Since the initial implementation in the six departments, IMR assisted the Hospital in expanding the document management system into other back office areas including: Human Resources, Clinical Engineering, Facilities and Construction, Care Management, Department of Education, Health Information Management Systems, and the Executive Suite. The clinical side of Hospital operations will be included in a future document management review and should, indeed, provide the Hospital with even more efficiencies and cost savings.

A Simple Example

A Hospital vendor contacts a department that purchased equipment to verify if an invoice had been paid. Past practice had the department manager place a call to the purchasing department, who would look up the invoice in a paper filing system, make a copy of that invoice and send it via interoffice mail to the department where the recipient would either file it, send it to the vendor or both. Now, individual departments can log directly into the system, and with an invoice number can answer the vendor's question on the first phone call. No additional phone calls. No copies. No interoffice mail. It's a savings of time, energy and paper and presents an organized efficiency to vendors and other external audiences.

The Benefits

Department Benefits

• Clear information exchange between departments.
• The infrastructure (both hardware and software modules) has made it extremely cost-effective for individual departments. There is no longer a need for departments to purchase their own scanners and other office equipment. A collaborative effort has allowed for a more focused approach to purchasing.
• The system is easily maintained.
• Employees recognize the value of an easy way to exchange information and have shifted their philosophies from "the old way" of doing things.

Hospital Benefits

• The implementation of one technology that now is providing service to upwards of 50 different departments has dramatically increased the Hospital's efficiency. Because of the widespread use of the document management system, Hospital employees have become extremely knowledgeable and can access the product to its full potential. Ultimately, this provides better service to the end user.
• Rather than multiple filing cabinets scattered throughout the Hospital, the value of the process is that all documents are in the same "filing cabinet," electronically and quickly available for all employees who need access

A Work In Progress

Prior to the engagement of IMR, the Hospital's various departments were making copies of documents and saving hard copies in files, leading to inefficiencies and possible errors. In working with IMR as a trusted advisor, the departments utilizing the system have seen incredible benefits. The benefits have translated into real dollar savings, improved efficiencies and productivity, as well as reducing errors.

The IMR solution not only improved the way Lehigh Valley Health Network processes documents, it also improved workflow efficiencies and transformed the way information is captured, processed, archived and retrieved. As a result of the business process consulting provided by IMR, these improvements translate across the Hospital's entire network.

"We have continued to grow the system significantly from year to year," explained Bankes. "After years of expansion on the business side of the house, we expanded into the clinical realm with several initiatives over the past year including integration with our enterprise EMR system and two telehealth initiatives with our ED & Trauma departments as well as our Burn Center. The TeleBurn initiative will expand significantly over the next year. Our EMR rollout will continue for the foreseeable future and we are continuing to evaluate departmental requests for additional internal department rollouts."

IMR's Commitment

Because of the changing needs of Lehigh Valley Health Network's large operation, IMR has become a trusted advisor to Lehigh Valley Health Network employees, developing a very specific software expertise that has prompted the Hospital to refer to them as "an extension of the IT staff." This specialized knowledge, trusted relationship and collaborative partnership has made Lehigh Valley Health Network's transition to an effective document management system a seamless and successful process.