Want to Relieve MD Office Staff STRESS?

Vinnie Whibbs, Senior VP, Community Initiatives, SCI Solutions

Hospitals have traditionally struggled with order communications between their affiliated physicians. The de facto tool for healthcare is the ubiquitous fax machine. Why is the fax the tool of choice? Because every office has one. Unfortunately, the benefits associated with using the
fax for secure communications ends there. Both physician office and hospital alike are tempted daily to trash the fax machine. How many times has the glorious fax been a frustration to you?

Hospitals have tried to remedy this by installing one-to-one communication tools such as facility-specific portals that are typical y purchased with a hospital information system. In theory, this sounds very appealing—until you step into the shoes of a typical physician office that interacts with a variety of facilities every day. Physicians and their staff often have a hard time mastering their own internal office systems. Rarely do they have the time to master separate systems from multiple facilities. So, even though the goal of hospitals when deploying one-to-one communication tools is to move physician offices away from communication tools like the fax, they actually reinforce their use since mastering multiple systems from a variety of facilities is unrealistic.

"OUR COMMUNITY WAS IN DESPERATE NEED OF A COMMUNITY SOLUTION. THE PHYSICIAN OFFICE STAFFS WERE SPENDING MORE TIME MANNING THE FAX AND PHONE THAN TAKING CARE OF PATIENTS.”

To be successful in changing behavior, hospitals have to give physician offices the right tool for the job…something that offers a similar one-to-many communication platform, similar to what the telephone did for voice communications.

In Northwest Florida, hospital leaders recognized this and deployed a community-wide tool that met the needs of the referring physicians. What developed was a web-based tool that allows any provider in the area to communicate securely with any other provider (physician office or hospital). Orders and referrals can be sent to any other provider through a secure “community portal,” and when the test or visit is complete the result is sent back through the same tool. This one-to-many approach resulted in exactly what the hospitals wanted . . . a movement away from relying on the unreliable fax machine for highly sensitive healthcare communications.

This process required a major leap of faith by many traditionally highly competitive groups. Participating in this community portal were three hospital systems: Baptist Healthcare (an independent community hospital), Sacred Heart Health System (an Ascension Health hospital) and West Florida Hospital (an HCA Healthcare facility). Similar participation by competing physician practices resulted as well. Most of the ancillary providers, such as home healthcare and therapy services and free-standing imaging centers, also joined the community portal.

Dr. Coy Irvin, a primary care physician who practices at two of the participating facilities and refers dozens of patients each week to specialists, knew the community needed a solution that was usable by all its healthcare providers. “Our community was in desperate need of a community solution,” he said. “The physician office staffs were spending more time manning the fax and phone than taking care of patients. The lost medical records, lost referrals, lost orders and associated phone tag were having a detrimental effect on patient care.”

Joe Felkner, CFO for Baptist Healthcare, was quick to see the writing on the wall. “At Baptist our mission first and foremost is to provide exceptional patient care. That process begins with our communication with the physician practices. We saw this as a great time to lower our competitive posture and cooperate for the good of the patients and our community.”

Sacred Heart Health System was equally instrumental in developing the community vision. Bill Winter, Director, Information Services and Linda Flemming, Director of Physician Relations, led the effort to move to a more “physician-centric” model. “We knew our physicians needed tools that fit their practices,” said Winter, “and we had to step out of our hospital shoes and into their shoes.”

Competition is a very good thing, but sometimes cooperation is even better. In the case of community communications, cooperation is the key to long-term success. While this physician-centric model might fly in the face of conventional hospital thinking focused on gaining a competitive advantage over their cross-town rival, it actually results in what is most important for hospital organizations . . . better patient satisfaction, better physician satisfaction and improved financial performance.

Hospitals that have moved to such community portal models have experienced the following:

• Improved patient satisfaction. When orders are streamlined, patients wait less for service and outcomes. Shorter waits translate to improved patient satisfaction.
• Improved physician office relationships. When orders don’t get lost, patients receive better care and physician offices run smoother. When phone calls between providers decrease, physician offices are more efficient. Recent physician surveys show the two most important things physicians focus on are ensuring the best possible care for their patients and improving the efficiency of their office.
• Improved revenue cycle performance. When orders are transmitted electronically, the revenue cycle receives a positive boost since medical necessity can be checked and proper patient and payer information can be collected at the earliest possible point (when the test is ordered at the physician office). The timing of these events is critical to ensure proper and timely collection for services.

As the old saying goes: “give the people (or docs) what they want.” And what they want is a community solution that provides easy, seamless communications with all medical providers in their area. This takes a leap of faith, but choosing cooperation over competition pays huge rewards in patient satisfaction, physician satisfaction and financial performance for those pioneering facilities.

¹Today over 80% of the area physician offices use the system to process consults

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client quote:

“With SCI we reduced our lab monthly denials from $23,000 to 0, and increased utilization from 400 average orders a month to 3,230, as well as improved patient, physician and staff satisfaction.”

Eisenhower Medical Center

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