Overlook Hospital
Wound Healing Program at Overlook Hospital Achieves Clinical, Operational, and Financial Improvements with WoundExpert® EMR
“WoundExpert enables me to document thoroughly. The software helps our staff analyze our practice, from marketing data such as patient demographics and wound type to clinical data such as healing rates achieved using various treatments. I appreciate the ability to access the program securely when I am away from the office, such as when I want to look over my upcoming patient schedule or when I am called after hours about a patient problem. WoundExpert certainly helps me be a more effective and efficient physician.”
David Eisenbud, MD, FACS, CWS
Medical Director
Overlook Hospital Wound Healing Program
Denise Malinowski, RN
Nurse Manager
Overlook Hospital, part of Atlantic Health is a 504-bed, not-for-profit, community teaching hospital located in Summit, NJ. Pursuing leading medical technologies, treatments and offering the best hospital services and care are parmount.
To this end, specialty programs like the Wound Healing Program at Overlook are staffed by leaders in their fields seeking the most effective diagnosis and treatment options for each patient. Originally, Overlook outsourced the program to a national management company. In 2005, Overlook undertook a comprehensive clinical, operations and financial analysis of the program.
“Atlantic Heath and Overlook administration were particularly concerned with services reimbursement, documentation quality, and the ability to benchmark internally and against national program standards. Implementing a technologically superior, yet easy to use, solution affording improved quality of patient care with operational excellence delivering an improved bottom-line were key to our successful transition to independent operation,” said Denise Malinowski, RN, Nurse Manager, Wound Healing and Hyperbarics.
In 2006, after considering several deployment alternatives, Overlook selected WoundExpert Electronic Medical Record (EMR). WoundExpert’s custom reporting and benchmarking, customizable treatment suggestions to Overlook clinicians facilitating clinical best practices, and evidence of cost-effective wound care brought Overlook to the forefront of EMR documentation and reimbursement justification.
According to Malinowski, “WoundExpert supports a legal medical record for all wound care patient encounters that eliminates paper, avoids dictation and transcription expense while saving space. The chart room was eliminated in our move to the new Medical Arts Center II building in early 2008.”
Today, Overlook’s multidisciplinary physician panel utilizes the most advanced treatment strategies that combine both medical and surgical modalities to support the establishment of individualized treatment plans suited to the needs of each patient.
“WoundExpert enables me to document thoroughly,” said David Eisenbud, MD, FACS, CWS Director, Wound Healing and Hyperbarics. “The software helps our staff analyze our practice, from marketing data such as patient demographics and wound type to clinical data such as healing rates achieved using various treatments. I appreciate the ability to access the program securely when I am away from the office, such as when I want to look over my upcoming patient schedule or when I am called after hours about a patient problem. WoundExpert helps me be a more effective and efficient physician.&rdquoWoundExpert improves risk assessment and mitigation compliance by improving patient safety using pictures as third identification source and accessing medication reconciliation without forbidden abbreviations. It encourages documentation compliance of all program support actions, providing a full story of all patient progress through the program; and cost effectively by effectively eliminating all dictation and transcription expense.
WoundExpert has improved patient satisfaction, staff utilzation, and fostered Overlook community outreach efforts through enhanced communications with referral primary care providers, specialists, family members and interested third parties. Monthly patient encounters have increased nearly 50 percent while staffing levels have remained flat. The program is averaging nearly 70 healed wounds per month and an overall 96.4 percent healing rate.
Most recently, Outlook’s commitment to continuous improvement and thought-leadership has resulted in the implementation of an HL7 ADT (Admissions, Discharge, and Transfer) interface with Overlook’s McKesson STAR hospital information system. Today, WoundExpert interoperability with STAR has reduced data entry redundancy and improved efficiency.
While the program has undergone many changes, the basic character and style have persevered. Malinowski concludes, “Since implementing WoundExpert, all facets of our program – clinical, operational, and financial – have improved, including staff productivity, patient and staff satisfaction, standard of care, regulatory compliance, patient safety, risk mitigation, and services reimbursement.”
