Electronic Health Records
Feb 15 2007
The Future is Now
Two Kaiser Permanente facilities have entire spectrum of the electronic medical record online
The future of health care has arrived at two Kaiser Permanente facilities in California with the rollout of KP HealthConnect™, a ground-breaking electronic health record (EHR) that ultimately will change the face of the health care across the entire KP system.
Since 2004, Kaiser Permanente's eight regions have been deploying various functions of the system at its 32 hospitals and more than 400 medical office buildings. Many elements of the electronic medical record are now available to all of the integrated health care organization's 8.6 million members.
In late 2006, Kaiser Permanente South Sacramento and Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park in the Los Angeles area became the first KP medical centers to provide end-to-end access to KP HealthConnect™'s full compliment of online, inpatient, outpatient and billing and administrative capabilities. At these two facilities, members and their providers now have 24/7 access to their full KP HealthConnect™ record, be it on the phone, in their doctor's office, while inpatients in the hospital or online.
The project is designed to strengthen patient safety and improve care by providing instant access to accurate medical records and information. At the same time, KP HealthConnect™ will streamline the care process and consequently improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Many of the system's benefits already are now realities at South Sacramento and Baldwin Park. In the inpatient area, caregivers can now record and access patient information at the bedside, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. A cart-mounted, wireless computer gives nurses the ability to chart patient data, review medical information and examine patient records in real-time.
Physicians, meanwhile, use KP HealthConnect™ to place orders for laboratory, X-rays and medication, communicate with other physicians, review test results and access treatment protocols and guidelines. In fact, the protocols already are helping KP improve the management of common chronic conditions, such as diabetes and hypertension. KP's Northern California region has also instituted bar-coding procedures designed to enhance the safety of medication administration.
In the outpatient setting, KP HealthConnect™ records and stores virtually all documentation associated with a patient visit, from scheduling, demographic and insurance information to vital signs, physician notes, prescription orders and lab results.
Across both inpatient and outpatient environments, the system also tracks important administrative information, including admissions, discharge and transfer data, order transmittal and results review, professional and hospital billing, abstracting, coding and charts.
One of the most exciting aspects of KP HealthConnect™ is the system's expanding integration with Kaiser Permanente's online portal, kp.org. Most members already can take advantage of kp.org to communicate with providers, review office visits and view lab results. Eventually, the system will allow all Kaiser Permanente members to schedule appointments, make co-payments, connect to their health care teams and access their personal health information online.
KP HealthConnect™ is placing KP at the forefront of the health care industry because it helps providers coordinate patient care between the physician's office, the hospital, radiology, the laboratory and the pharmacy. It integrates care seamlessly between multiple service areas and facilities, and will eliminate the pitfalls of incomplete, missing or unreadable charts. The system also will boost operational efficiency by creating a common information platform to replace a multitude of disparate and outdated technologies across all eight regions across the KP network.
Wisconsin-based Epic Systems is the primary vendor in the deployment of HealthConnect, although the system integrates a number of applications from other vendors, including IBM, Vignette, Right Fax, Ingenix and Per Se Technologies.