A Patient eSignature Case Study
Woman’s Hospital
Placing eSignature Automated Decision Making Technology at the Center of Patient Care Mission
Introduction
Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is a specialty hospital that provides state-of-the-art medical services for women and infants in a caring, comforting environment. Since opening in 1968, Woman’s has welcomed into the world more than 350,000 babies, making it one of the largest delivery services in the country and the largest in Louisiana.
In addition to 168 adult beds, Woman’s Hospital operates a level III-S Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with 84 beds. This designation allows them to care for infants who are extremely premature, are critically ill, or require surgical intervention. The hospital is also recognized for its expertise in mammography as well as breast and gynecologic cancer care. With more than 2,500 employees and medical staff members, Woman’s has been named one of the Best Places to Work in healthcare by Modern Healthcare for 14 years, the only hospital to make the list every year since the recognition was established.
PATIENT ESIGNATURE Case Study Highlights
- Removing friction form the patient care experience utilizing eSignature Platform technology with Access eForms.
- Freeing up staff with Automated background decision making, to focus on one to one patient experience in Registration departments.
- Benefits of a completely paperless registration department, with the ability to view digital eForms in real-time.
- Eliminating redundancy with quick, on-the-spot, patient information verification and best practices.
- Impact of working with Access eForms MEDITECH as a premier integrated vendor focused on providing solutions to problems.
Using Healthcare eSignature & eForm Automation Technology to Remove Friction from Patient Care
For the last 50 years, Woman’s Hospital has carried a tradition of providing world class care for women, readily adopting the most advanced medical services and practices. As such, Amy Beal, Woman’s Hospital’s Patient Services Manager, was looking for a technology solution that would remove patient registration barriers by eliminating their paper forms, and the subsequent printing, scanning, handling of paper forms, and inherent paper form risks.
“We needed a solution that would automate the process to make it easier for the patient and registrar,” Beal explains.
In looking for a suitable solution, they “often check with KLAS (Keystone Library Automation System) to see what solutions are working well and which vendors are not working well. And, over the years, we learned that Access eForms just tends to work well with healthcare products, the HIS and EMR systems that we were using, and the Wacom devices for eSignature.”
Prior to implementing Access’s eSignature platform, patients would have to complete paper forms during their visit. In some cases, expecting moms would have to take packet of paper forms home for completion prior to their visit, or while they were en route to give birth. This process required that the patient remember to complete their forms and bring them back to the hospital, which was a constant struggle to manage, adding unnecessary workload for Woman’s HIM department and Patient Intake personnel.
“We were having to print forms for patients to see and sign. Then there’s the physical documentation process, and the staff having to remember which forms a patient needs to complete and in which cases, was difficult to manage. We have now been able to automate all of those processes with Access,” says Beal.
Additionally, it was difficult for new employees of the hospital to learn manual processes, including patient information verification, and choose the correct forms for patients.
Access eSignature Platforms’ Decision-Making Automation
Relying on Background Decision Making to Free Up Staff in Registration
Common with many healthcare systems, Woman’s Hospital Registration areas often shape the first impressions for patients; and creating an easy intake process to provide a positive first impression for the patient was challenging given cumbersome paper-based forms served as the foundation for the registration process.
Now, Access’ software carries out background decision making, which has freed up time for new registrars to focus more on organizational learning. Patient information capture is near-instant, easy to use, and automatically routed into the patient’s chart within MEDITECH, a process that also gives registrars the time needed to provide the best experience possible for patients and their sensitive care needs.
“We care about our patients and making sure their experience is easy. Most of our patients are coming in to deliver babies, or they may be coming in after they have lost a birth. The women we see are in a highly stressed state, huffing and puffing, and trying to hold that baby until she gets to the floor. We needed to have processes patients understand and be able to efficiently and effectively get them to sign all these consents, and rely on them. With us having the ability to show our forms electronically so they can see what they are signing alleviates lots of questions the patient may have and allows them the comfort of knowing that they are being taken care of quickly and efficiently.Anytime we can streamline a process it helps to ensure that we are always following our mission to take care of our mamas!” Beal proudly exclaims.
Woman’s registration department, like many hospitals today, is comprised of entry-level positions with staffing challenges. However, Woman’s was able to lighten the staff burden with Access’ eSignature Platform, implementing automation for much of the redundant and difficult-to-remember processes, such as which forms to have completed and in which scenario.
Beal explains, “Staffing has definitely improved for registration areas. These are your entry level positions if I will, and there is a lot to learn. As a registration clerk, it is crucial to know which forms to sign and in which cases. Having Access Automated Decision Making Technology readily doing the decision making for us has helped tremendously.”
This in turn creates a much better learning environment for new registration employees, and the tools allow staff more time for individual patient care and interaction.
“Again, processes and workflow tools, right? Now, the end user does not have to think about, does this patient have this insurance? Do I need to get them to complete these forms? Did I get them the right forms, at the right time based on payers? […] So again (with eSignature Automation), the training is much more efficient for Registrars. You do not have to get as in-depth and you are able to turn them over much quicker along without errors,”
Amy Beal
Woman’s Hospital’s Patient Services Manager
MEDITECH Integrated Patient eSig & Paperless Registration
Benefits of a Completely Paperless Registration Department with MEDITECH Integrated Access eForms
Transforming Woman’s Hospital’s registration to a completely paperless, digital process within MEDITECH has had many benefits across Woman’s entire health network. Beal explains,
“We utilize Access eForms throughout all of our in-person registration areas, this includes six different hospital departments and all of our physician clinics. We are also utilizing Access throughout our organization in a way that patients can see the consents that they are signing, entirely electronically. It is not just the electronic signature pads that the patients sign, when a registrar says, please sign here for your HIPAA, the patient can physically see the document that they are signing with the Access eForms software. “
Eliminate Paper Risks with Instant Patient Information Verification & Education
Transforming Woman’s Hospital’s registration has had many additional benefits for the patient experience that allows the patient, to become more informed about what they are signing. As Beal explains, “Patients have less questions now because they are not just blindly signing some document that they cannot see. This is especially important for those individuals who want to be particularly educated about what they are signing. Now, they can physically see the electronic forms they are asked to sign. They can easily see that, this is our HIPAA privacy policy, or that this is our consent to treat.
Before working with Access eForms, Woman’s had a complicated and error-prone manual process for information verification. Now, due to the instant, electronic nature of the eForm technology in healthcare, Woman’s can present the information to the patient in real-time, supplemented by additional validation processes.
“After going paperless with Access eForms, we did not want to have to print out a form, tell patients to validate the information, and physically sign it, and then scan it back into the EMR–that’s a huge waste. We are truly paperless because now patients can visually review everything that is in the system. E-forms assist the patient to quickly identify, this is not my correct phone number, that is not my correct address, or that is not how you spell my name. We then update it immediately and get them to initial off on it. Information is all there on the computer, synchronized electronically. Eforms has allowed us to reduce the waste of paper, ease the patient of knowing what exactly we have in our system and visualize what they are signing.”
Amy Beal
Woman’s Hospital’s Patient Services Manager
While information verification was not an anticipated benefit for Woman’s, this outcome has had a tremendous impact in reducing unnecessary risk, increasing compliance, and helping to ensure patients that their information is being handled with the utmost care. Prior to the Access eSignature platform, the information verification process was a much more difficult and manual process.
“Amy explains, “Two different things would have happened. One, we were physically having to print those forms for the patients to look at, just to see if the information was correct. Two, they were not validating the information. We were not getting correct addresses. We had more return mail, because patients were not accurately validating their information in some cases. As opposed to today, when you ask patients to look at something and initial it, they are paying closer attention. They’re updating it, and addressing validation issues at hand, while we have them in front of us.”
Conclusion
Value of a MEDITECH Vendor Focused on Solving Problems
The impact that Access has had on Woman’s Hospital has been two-fold. First, the eSignature technology has allowed them to move to a completely paperless registration process, which has improved efficiency and freed up time for registrars. Second, the decision automation capabilities of the Access eSignature platform have allowed Woman’s Hospital staff to rely on the software to make background decisions for complicated, process driven tasks. Access’s eSignature Platform technology has helped eliminate paper risks by providing instant patient information verification that is updated immediately at the time of registration, ensuring compliance, and protecting patients’ data.