Galen Healthcare Solutions: Allscripts Consultants Enterprise EHR

It’s no secret that we all have busy lives.  As professionals and individuals, we are all important pieces of the larger puzzle of the healthcare community. As partners working towards a common goal, we continually collaborate and contribute to the bigger picture of an ever-improving healthcare system.

I’ll be the first to admit that it can be easy sometimes to get caught up in the day-to-day tediousness of all the little details that require my attention inseeing a myriad of projects through to their fruition. That being said, I think it is important to not lose sight of the bigger picture and to fuel the fire of our motivation by taking a step back from time to time.

Recently, someone shared an old story with me about a man who walks by a construction site and sees workers pushing wheelbarrows; each filled with an enormous stone.

The man asks one of the workers what they’re doing.

“What does it look like?” he says with a sneer.”Hauling rocks.”

Unsatisfied with that answer, the passerby asks another construction worker the same question.

The workman doesn’t bother looking up. “We’re putting up a wall.”

Frustrated, the man tries one last time. “I say there,” he asks the next worker, “can you tell me what you are doing here?”

The worker puts down his wheelbarrow, wipes his forehead and says with a broad smile, “We’re building a cathedral.”

Here are three workers, all doing the same job. One is hauling rocks. One is putting up a wall. One is building a cathedral.

This story says a lot about the attitude that each of us brings to our lives… or could if we were willing to change our perspective. At Galen, we pride ourselves on our attitude and I think this story speaks true to one of the main motivators of our collective outlook.

Each of us plays a vital role in our respective realms as we focus on ‘hauling our rocks’ to meet this deadline or solve that problem. As we move forward, we slowly but surely ‘build walls’ and accomplish individual and organizational objectives.

But the real objective of our efforts, whether we realize it or not, is actually helping to achieve a better healthcare system in this country, one small step at a time. In our own unique way, and with each accomplishment, we help to realize this collective dream.

Attitude truly is everything. Yes, it may sound like a cliché to some, but this simple statement speaks volumes towards one fundamental change of perspective we can make, which in turn can make an overwhelming impact on the level of happiness and enhance the quality of our day-to-day lives.

The choice is yours. You can haul rocks. You can put up walls. Or you can build a cathedral.

We’re excited about this one.

For years, doctors have been using tools like the Framingham Risk Calculator to estimate risk for a number of different disease states – like cardiovascular disease, diabetes and breast cancer. These calculators use information commonly found in the patient’s chart like vital signs, lab values and age. The risk scores are increasingly being typed back into the chart.

eCalcs are . . .

Integrated into the EHR – with one click of a button you are brought to a host of the most common health calculators, including the Framingham Risk Calculators.

Patient Specific – pulling in the relevant data from the current patient’s chart.

Documented back into the EHR – the risk scores can be added back into the patient’s chart with a single click.

For a full product overview, and a link to the eCalcs brochure, visit the eCalcs page on our wiki.

Contact information

Cary Bresloff, VP – Sales and Marketing, 312-878-2349 or Cary.Bresloff@galenhealthcare.com

Drew Bradle, Account Manager, 312-239-6648 or Drew.Bradle@galenhealthcare.com

CMS released a couple of updates last month regarding Meaningful Use and the EHR incentive program. I wanted to pass this information along to our readers.

In their December 7 update, CMS indicated that “HHS announced its intention to delay the start of Stage 2 meaningful use  for the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs for a period of one year for those first attesting to meaningful use in 2011”.  The reason as such, according to them, is that the current schedule for compliance to Stage 2 could be a challenge for those that attested in 2011. The decision also was in consideration for vendors and practices.

 The CMS update identified some benefits from the proposal:

• The delay could provide vendors more time to develop their certified technologies for Stage 2
• The delay could also provide providers more time to implement the new software to meet Stage 2 requirements
• Expectations remain current so that providers attesting in either 2011 or 2012 begin Stage 2 in 2014
• And while 2011 has passed, CMS believed this idea would provide added incentive for providers to attest in 2011.

While I am sure there is a group of people out there that is ambitious enough to keep pace for this process, I am certain that we all can stand to benefit from the proposed delay.  The benefits from the added amount of time for both the vendors and practices/providers seem more appealing, in my opinion.

Back on December 1, CMS also announced a new tool to help Eligible Professionals (EPs) through the phases of Meaningful Use.  This tool is an eighty-five (85) page PDF file, dubbed as a “Beginner’s Guide”. This file provides a thorough, interactive walkthrough of Meaningful Use.

Among the items of information provided are:

• EHR Incentive Program basics
• How to participate (determining eligibility and registration)
• Meaningful use and choosing measures
• Attestation
• Helpful resources on the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs

Lastly, they also provided a link to their Educational Materials page for the EHR Incentive Program. This link offers an extensive array of files and tools regarding the EHR Incentive Program.  This is definitely a link to bookmark, as well as the guide previously mentioned.

If you haven’t already done so, visit the CMS EHR Incentive Programs webpage and register to receive their email notifications. 

Contact Galen Healthcare Solutions for any additional questions regarding Meaningful Use and Allscripts Enterprise^TM EHR.

Tags: Allscripts, Allscripts Enterprise EHR, EHR Certification, Enterprise EHR, Meaningful Use

Galen’s Interface Team had a full house in Boston yesterday, hosting twelve interface analysts from ten healthcare organizations throughout the country, for Galen’s first Results Interface Conference

The training covered the topic of building and maintaining results interfaces within the Allscripts Enteprise EHR. The group covered ImageLink, order reconciliation, Requested Performing Location identifiers, auto synching, troubleshooting errors and the underlying data model.

While I have great confidence in our Interface Team and the instruction provided given their expertise, the best part of the day was the interaction that occurred between the different healthcare organizations that attended the training. Throughout the day, I saw attendees pulling each other aside during breaks. They were discussing approaches to resolving errors they saw in their own environments, best practices for building new interfaces and trading ideas on working with microbiology results in Enterprise (a perennial issue).

The group continued conversations started on the Allscripts Interface Developers Network, which I’m sure will continue today and in coming months.

We look forward to offering similar conferences and trainings, and would love to get your thoughts on what type of training sessions and conferences we should host in the future.

We recently announced a new addition to the webcast series – an introduction to creating Analysis Crosstabs in Analytics.
Description: Learn how to slice and dice data within Analytics using Analysis Crosstabs. We will learn the basics of Crosstabs: how to use all Dimensions (Row, Column and Slice), Top/Bottom N rows, and Drill-through to Worksheets.

Join us at 2pm Eastern on Wednesday, August 10th for this webcast.

To register, please visit the webcast page on the Galen website.

 The Pan Mass Challenge

The Pan Mass Challenge is an annual race across Massachusetts that raises money for cancer research and treatment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute through its Jimmy Fund.  The race started back in 1980 and raises more money for charity than any other single event in the country.  The PMC donates 100 percent of the money raised directly to the cause.  In 2010, the PMC generated 60 percent of the Jimmy Fund’s annual revenue.  This year, PMC cyclists set a goal of $34 million for Dana-Farber.

Approximately 5,000 cyclists ride in the race each year.  Of the six two-day routes, Zak Fjeldheim chose the longest at 200 miles.  The bike ride will go from Sturbridge to Provincetown, MA.  The event will start with a special event the night of Friday, August 5th in Sturbridge and the race will begin early Saturday and end on Sunday.

To learn more about the Pan Mass Challenge, visit http://www.pmc.org/about.asp?ArticleID=83; or the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute visit, http://www.dana-farber.org/About-Us.aspx.

Susan G. Komen 3-Day For The Cure

Susan G. Komen fought breast cancer with her heart, body and soul. Throughout her diagnosis, treatments, and endless days in the hospital, she spent her time thinking of ways to make life better for other women battling breast cancer instead of worrying about her own situation. That concern for others continued even as Susan neared the end of her fight. Moved by Susan’s compassion for others and committed to making a difference, Nancy G. Brinker promised her sister that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever.

That promise is now Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the global leader of the breast cancer movement, having invested more than $1.9 billion since inception in 1982. As the world’s largest grassroots network of breast cancer survivors and activists, they’re working to save lives, empower people, ensure quality care for all and energize science to find the cures. Thanks to events like the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure® and the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, and generous contributions from their partners, sponsors and fellow supporters, they have become the largest source of nonprofit funds dedicated to the fight against breast cancer in the world. 

This September, Cyn Gerson will again join thousands of women and men to take part of the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for The Cure. This 60-mile journey is held each year to celebrate survivors, honor lives lost, promote breast cancer research and help bring breast cancer care to those who so desperately need it. Eighty-five percent of net proceeds from this event benefits Susan G. Komen for the Cure to fund breast cancer research, education, screening and treatment programs. The remainder of the proceeds goes to The National Philanthropic Trust Breast Cancer Fund, which provides ongoing support to breast cancer initiatives.

To learn more about Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure, visit http://www.the3day.org

When an organization starts out on the long road of implementing an electronic health record the project manager will typically research what steps the organization needs to take to make their EHR project a success.  Learning from others is the most efficient use of resources. So what are the factors that those who have gone before you feel make an EHR project successful?  This is Part II in a series of blog articles on steps to make your EHR project a success.

Part II – Exceptional project management and control

First and foremost is to have an enthusiastic leadership team.  When the leadership team is excited and committed to the project the enthusiasm will be contagious.  That enthusiasm will spread throughout the providers and staff.  Buy-in definitely starts from the top down.  Any end user or recipient of a change implemented can sense when leadership is on the fence about the change.  Therefore demonstrating enthusiasm of the leadership in any and all public forums will be crucial when trying to achieve full buy-in of your organization.  A crucial role of an effective leadership team is to stand behind important decisions made during the life of the project.

 The next item that contributes to exceptional project management and control is holding ongoing meetings with EHR committee & sub-committees. When establishing who your committees should be comprised of make sure you include representation from providers, clinical staff, front desk staff, billing staff, medical records, clinic managers, and key members from you EHR project team.  Sub-committees may need to be formed in order address more specific design decisions needed for certain modules. For example when designing your charge module the sub-committee may be a charge workgroup that consists of billing and coding personnel, managers and those involved on the project team in the build of the charge module.  Holding regularly scheduled meetings provide the avenue for continual and effective communication. An essential component of the meetings is working from an agenda and keeping thorough minutes for tracking purposes.  Being able to have a list of actions items from your meetings is key in keeping the project on target. 

Establish champions of the EHR will help in so many areas of your implementation.  When a provider is struggling with either a workflow or concept of the EHR a champion can step in and provide some much needed assistance and support.  Champions of the EHR are not just your physician champion, your project team, or your leadership team.  These champions are also identified individuals who are supporters of your project.  They are the individuals in the field who hear the day to day struggles that users are experiencing.  When provided an avenue to either assist or report these EHR champions can be extremely instrumental in the continued success of your implementation.

When the project manager is initially beginning the EHR project he or she should set realistic project management processes.  This could include obtaining input from those involved in the build or establishing an effective method of communication to obtain status updates. 

Gather appropriate data and perform necessary research is another significant step in the management your EHR project.  For example when creating flowsheets you will want to gather any and all flowsheets being used in the clinics today.  Or when you are creating your future state workflows not only should you document the current state workflow but your organization should also spend a couple hours following a patient flow.  Simply asking the questions necessary to document the current state workflow is not enough.  As a project team your understanding of the patient flow is a key principle to complete your research. 

 One of the final components of exceptional project management and control is establishing hardware needs and planning accordingly. This would be equivalent to teaching someone how to build a house then not giving them the correct tools.  A provider will find their patient visit difficult to get through documenting if they do not have access to the EHR in the exam rooms.  The success of your EHR implementation is reliant upon this activity taking place long before you begin your implementation.

The final component in exceptional project management and control is to determine staffing needs and do not short change your project. Staffing of your project beyond the project manager includes analysts, who will perform the build activities, a well-trained help desk, trainers, and those who will provide onsite go-live support.  When you feel you have just enough staff members, add a couple more, you will be surprised how long activities take and what all is involved in successfully implementing an EHR.

The past few months have been a time of incredible growth at Galen.  We are excited to announce the following additions to the Galen family.  We look forward to sharing their combined knowledge with the Allscripts community. 

Callie Moore – We are pleased to welcome Callie Moore to our Upgrade Team in Burlington, Vermont.  While attending the University of Vermont (UVM), Callie had the opportunity to gain invaluable experience in healthcare through an internship with Fletcher Allen Children’s Hospital.  Callie has been eager to learn all she can and we are excited to have Callie on board to share her experiences and knowledge with us!

Tammara Blankenship – Tammara joined our Services Team in October and has been traveling from her home office in Statesville, NC to Albuquerque, NM each week to assist a client with their Phase IV implementation of Enterprise EHR.  Tammara came to Galen with over 13 years of healthcare experience, she has a background as a Certified Medical Assistant, and exposure to multiple EHR applications, including Enterprise EHR.  We are glad to have Tammara as part of our team of experts at Galen! 

August Borie – August comes to us straight from the University of Vermont (UVM) with a degree in Computer Science Information Systems.  He will be joining our team in Burlington, VT as a Project Manager for our v11.x to v11.2 upgrade projects.  August will start with Galen, officially, on January 24 and we know that his strong technical background will make a perfect fit with our savvy team in VT!  We welcome August to the group! 

Kyle Paya –  Kyle also comes to us from UVM with a Bachelor’s Degree is in business administration.  Kyle has been part of the success of a multi-million dollar company with focus on project management, inventory management, and operations planning.  Kyle will be a key Project Manager for our v11.x to v11.2 upgrade clients and we are confident that his previous project management experience will make him a success.  

Kristie Gilbert – Kristie joins Galen from a Vermont family health organization where she has firsthand experience with an electronic health record.  Kristie is well versed in many aspects of EHR implementations from workflow development to interface implementation to process improvement.  Kristie will be fulfilling multiple roles on the Upgrade Team and we look forward to her sharing her knowledge and experiences. 

Jackie Hartman – Jackie, who will be working from her home office in Lincolnton, NC will also be part of our Upgrade Team.  Jackie has experience in healthcare as an LPN working with critically ill patients and in education as a teacher & media specialist. She will be working in a Project Management capacity for our v10 to v11 and v11.x to v11.2 upgrade clients.   We know Jackie’s background and capabilities will add to the breadth of knowledge we find so important at Galen.  We are excited to have Jackie as a part of the Galen team! 

Noah Orr –Noah has a multitude of EHR experience from workflow documentation, to training, to system and end user support.  Given his firsthand experience using the Enterprise EHR product we feel this will provide another level of expertise to the Galen team.  Noah will be joining our Services Team and will be working with one of our premier clients in San Diego, CA.  We look forward to Noah sharing his talents with the rest of the Galen group! 

Mary Larson – Mary joins Galen with an extensive background in EHR implementation.  She has been an Implementation Director, a Systems Analyst, and a Clinical System Analyst with multiple organizations that have used various EHR applications.  Mary also has over twenty eight years experience working in patient care settings.  Galen looks forward to her tremendous insight and knowledge and knows she will be a significant contributor as a member of the Service Team.  Mary will be joining Galen on January 6! 

Zak Fjeldheim – Zak joins the Technical Services Team with experience as an Interface Analyst at Meditech.  Zak is excited to bring his healthcare IT, interface and HL7 experience to the Allscripts world.  He will be a valuable member of the team, contributing what he learned in a similar role.  Zak will work as an Interface Analyst in the Boston office. 

Patrick Zummo – Patrick has spent the past five years working as an insurance underwriter in healthcare and technology.  Patrick is a technology hobbyist and has been involved in healthcare IT organizations, like HIMSS, prior to joining Galen.  Patrick will also be writing interfaces in our Boston office.

“The achievements of an organization are the results of the combined effort of each individual.”

                                                          -    Vince Lombardi

When Matt, Jason, and I co-founded Galen Healthcare Solutions in 2005, we made a promise to ourselves that we would embrace the things that we loved about the companies we had previously worked for and endeavor to eliminate or avoid the things that we didn’t. 

As we approach our 5^th anniversary, I think it is fair to suggest that the “hyper-growth” we have experienced as an organization has challenged our commitment to that objective.  One area that I believe we have remained steadfast, however, is that other than our people and the culture we collectively create, nothing else really matters.

The easiest part of managing Galen is setting expectations in terms of our people’s approach, attitude, and level of accountability.  We are truly blessed with a collection of professionals who simply relish the opportunity to make our clients successful.  The level of infrastructural support the group provides to one another constantly amazes me.  It often seems as though our people take more pride in the success of their fellow “Galeneer” than that of themselves.  Our culture has become self-governing; rewarding high-performers with the respect they deserve, but at the same time mentoring and nurturing those of us still in the earlier stages of the learning cycle.

It is for these reasons that when Galen recently received a bit of national acclaim, being listed 333rd among the Inc. 5000’s fastest growing companies in America (http://www.inc.com/inc5000/profile/galen-healthcare-solutions), we took it well in stride and celebrated, as a company, with an understated round of self-congratulatory emails and a few pats on each other’s backs.  Certainly, this was a nice recognition for all of the hard work that all of us at Galen have put forth, but alas, there are mountains that still need climbing and they obviously won’t climb themselves.  We’ll save the more “tangible” celebration for when we make our annual pilgrimage to the warm weather in a few months at our 2011 National Meeting.

During his keynote speech at the HIMSS conference earlier this year, National Health IT Coordinator Dr. David Blumenthal suggested that there is a need for more than 40,000 additional Health IT workers to support increasing demand brought on by EHR adoption, driven through HITECH funding.  Colleges and universities across our nation are actively training the people who will fill these roles today.  It is comforting to me to know that some small percentage of these individuals will have an opportunity to become a part of our organization.  That they will be embraced by a culture that won’t allow them to wander aimlessly, but instead will provide a foundation of guidance and support from which they can become impactful, accountable, and successful in their desire to see our vision for interconnected health care become a reality.   

They will, after all, be Galen People.

Steve McQueen

CEO

Tags: Allscripts Consultants, Allscripts Enterprise EHR, EHR Implementation

The Path to Meaningless Use:

As many of you know the ACE 2010 event just took place last week. As I was pouring through some of the handouts I couldn’t help but be drawn into the “Handy Trail Guide” which Allscripts has touted as “The Path to Meaningful Use” This is a great high level guide to reaching Stage 1 of Meaningful Use – Capture and Share Data.

The more I read through this the more I thought of how clients will be looking at this with an eye to the shortest path to receiving their stimulus check, and rightfully so – every group should be looking to take advantage of this, from the largest hospital to the smallest single-doc practice. However, I wanted to make sure we don’t lose sight of the forest from the trees here and bring this trail guide back to the true reason for the stimulus – improving patient care! Hence the genesis of this article, The Path to Meaningless Use.

There are a couple of main points I’d like to highlight before dissecting the step by step approach.

1. Sell benefits of the EHR – I feel like this process is woefully underappreciated. In order for your rollout to be a success you absolutely need buy-in from all end-users, including physicians, nurses, data-entry folks and really any person that will touch the EHR on any level. How is this product going to improve their productivity? Make their job easier? Make their work experience more enjoyable?
2. Change is a good thing – Change is the process by which innovation and improvement are instilled. I know that people are comfortable with the status-quo and yes, change for change sake is useless, but there’s a reason for change here, I promise! Challenge your co-workers to look at everything objectively and really question if the products and processes currently in place really make sense or if there could be a better way.
3. Make concessions, don’t over-customize – The product is designed to work best when used in an out of the box capacity, sans customizations. The reality is that you probably aren’t going to be able to sell the idea of changing every workflow to fit the product, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Ultimately in the long term the stability of the system is most closely tied to how close you stay to it’s intended use, therefore fight for those process changes to model the system, there’s a reason the EHR was designed the way it was! This point goes back to selling the benefits, be able to show how using the new workflows will actually improve the end-user experience!

With those main points made here are a few comments on the step in the Path to Meaningless Use, enjoy!

1. Understand Stimulus – Don’t just aim for the stage 1 level of capturing and sharing data, yes this can improve productivity but don’t lose sight of the true end goal, improving patient care.
2. Assess Gaps – Be honest with yourself. Are the tools you are using as efficient as they could be? Don’t keep old processes and tools in use just because people are “comfortable” with them, if there is a better tool out there, use it! Sometimes taking people out of their comfort zone is exactly what is needed to promote healthy growth.
3. Design New Workflows – Don’t be unwilling to change workflows simply because that’s the way it’s always been done. Be prepared to pitch workflow re-design to physicians with benefits for them in mind.
4. Upgrade EHR & Stimulus Set – Don’t rush this upgrade. There are many factors that go into an upgrade (depending on how many versions you are jumping) and simply upgrading for the sake of getting the stimulus approved version may end up biting you if you haven’t correctly re-worked process flows to use the EHR in a meaningful way.
5. Rollout – During training stress benefits to end users, a 3 day crash course on the new EHR system is great but if you can’t prove to your end users why the new product and workflows make sense you aren’t going to receive full buy in and consequently won’t get the most out of the product.
6. Begin 90-day Meaningful Use – Metrics should be kept on an ongoing basis, not just for 90 days. It’s great to hit the 90 day plateau to receive the stimulus check but the true purpose of the EHR is to improve patient treatment, and you can’t improve what you don’t measure.
7. Report & Claim Stimulus – Nothing meaningless about this step, claim the money and move on to the next stage!

Tags: Allscripts, EHR, Meaningful Use, v11 upgrade