Moreno Medical Center (MMC) utilizes multiple network-integrated clinical and administrative information systems to improve the communication and collaboration between organizational leadership, senior management at the department level, employees, doctors, nurses, and clinical students working at MMC. The information systems increase the efficiency of hospital operations, improve relationships with current and future patients, and assist senior executives in managing hospital finances, department and programs budgets, and programs.
Moreno Medical Center has developed a long-term purposeful strategy to ensure compliance with current and future government mandates pertaining to health information technology and meaningful use. The clinical and administrative systems have the capacity to allow MMC to purchase and implement additional clinical and administrative applications to meet the needs of internal and external stakeholders, which will help to ensure timely compliance with government mandates and allow users to take advantage of meaningful use (MU) incentives. Some departments are limited to specific applications and functions, such as health information systems (HIS) and the electronic medical records (EMR) system.
The HIS is used by clinical program managers and senior executives to collect, capture, process, transmit, report, and analyze patient, program, and MMC operations data. Access to and use of data for making quality evidence-based financial, operational, and management decisions pertaining to health care service delivery and improving the quality and use of health information requires completing a new or updated Access
Request Form. This form is signed by the Department Director based on access justification and then submitted to the Director of the IT Department for approval and a work order assignment to set up employee access.
Department staff will provide new employee training on how to use the basic HIS resources. All employees have their own unique computer sign-on user name and access code that bring up all system-related resources to which they have access. Before signing on for the first time, employees most acknowledge reading the company policies and expectations that relate to the use of the health information system.
The EMR system is integrated into the basic HIS. It is made up of multiple clinical software applications used mostly by MMC doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals for diagnosis and treatment of patients within all hospital clinical inpatient and outpatient departments. These departments include offices, nurses’ stations, patient rooms, ancillary services departments, clinics that provide medical care and ancillary services, emergency departments, operating rooms, intensive care, departmental doctors’ and medical team offices, and designated computers behind the nurses’ stations on hospital wards.
Limited Access for administrative and specialized clinical EMR applications:
Gaining access to EMR system:
Gaining access to this system is the same as for the HIS, with the exception of added formal basic and departmental-specific training and assessment requirements. All new employees and EMR users are required to either attend a class offered at MMC or have access to a departmental EMR-designated trainer who has received advanced training on the use of the EMR, including training on the applications and processes used across
the hospital departments and/or to meet specific job duty requirements of day-to-day departmental operational needs.
Training modules:
Training modules with assessments were developed by MMC and the EMR vendor, with oversight by a health care consulting company, to ensure that all employees are trained on the system and applications they are required to use.
While in training, employees will be required to complete EMR training modules and assessments in their department on their assigned computer through the MMC intranet. The training website offers general simulations that are used by all departments. New employees and users of new applications are required to learn and demonstrate competencies based on successfully completing all assessments.
Once new users are able to master these simulations and complete end-of-module assessments with a passing score of 100% in all areas, they will be shown how to use customized department functions by the department trainer or senior staff.
The customized training provides hands-on experience for new users to learn how to use a hypothetical departmental patient record before they are allowed to use the system without direct supervision.
The accounting and finance information system is used by senior executives to manage Moreno Medical Center cash flows, assets, liabilities, and net income. The IS helps generate financial statements required by federal regulations. This system is also used by the President/CFO, Chief Executive Officers, Department Directors, and their designated administrative and program management support staff that are involved in daily operations. They assist with the preparation of departmental budgets and program evaluation reports, using the program evaluation and data analytic tools to determine if departments and programs are meeting financial, accounting, and other related performance expectations.
Training is provided to new users on how to use these tools upon request. If training is not available, assistance in running the tools will be provided. The required analyses should be generated to enable the departments to analyze reports based on data collected to use for submitting reports to leadership to make evidenced-based decisions about departments and programs.
The HRIS is used to manage hospital policies, procedures, and compliance requirements that involve HR. It allows other department heads and managers that have HR reporting responsibilities to conduct HR-related business through the hospital intranet. It enables organizational department directors to communicate HR needs and to submit requests, reports, and performance appraisals. Employees are able to communicate needs, respond to online job postings, and to access the Employee Health Promotion program website via the Internet, allowing HR employees to concentrate on more critical HR actions.
The CRM is used to for multiple purposes.
The first purpose is to build patient loyalty by allowing patients to interface with the hospital through the Internet. Patient recommendations, complaints, and comments are tracked by the CRM and provide patient satisfaction reports to senior managers. These reports are in addition to other patient satisfaction reports received by senior leadership from MMC patient satisfaction surveys by department.
Secondly, several hospital departments input external contacts needed to perform daily operations and have chosen to use the CRM to communicate with shared organizational contacts, such as those that are involved with community-based programs. Departments that provide services to area employers share employer contacts and company protocols. For those that have after-hours needs, the protocols in the CRM are shared with the Emergency Department.
Each department has the ability to restrict access to non-contact information that can be stored in CRM. Each department can set up its own database and choose what to share with other departments. This typically involves customized reports, referral contacts, procedures, and policies that impact authorization for payment of insurance claims and services not covered by insurance.
The Medical KM information system is used by doctors and nurses to access online medical databases to assist in patient diagnosis and drug administration. There is also access to online medical research and online journals and publications that MMC subscribes to. Copies of MMC research studies that have been published are also in the MMC Medical Library.
The Chief Nursing Officer, Chief Medical Director, and Chief Financial Officer share the leadership oversight for this information system. All requests for additional resources, including online journals, research reports, and interlibrary loans from medical college libraries should be submitted to the Director of Research. Requests for funding of approved additional resources are submitted to the CFO.