Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System Improves Patient Registration e-Signature Option with Access and MEDITECH
Sulphur Springs, TX (PRWEB) April 30, 2015 -- As hospitals move toward meeting Electronic Health Records (EHR) Meaningful Use requirements, they’re trying to eliminate as much paperwork as possible. To this end, Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System (SVMHS) is using Access’s electronic signatures solution at registration.
Instead of printing forms, having patients sign them with a pen, and then scanning them into MEDITECH’s EHR, SVMHS offers e-forms that patients authorize with secure electronic signatures and are sent directly into EHRs with no manual intervention.
“Access’s e-signature integration with MEDITECH is a secure system that benefits our patients and our medical staff.” said Sam Powell, SVMHS system administrator. “Once the patient signs the signature tablet, the signed admissions forms are immediately scanned and archived.”
Patients at SVMHS have welcomed the automated change.
“Using Access e-Signature alongside MEDITECH impresses our patients because we have a high tech registration approach instead of using pen and paper,” Powell said.
Transitioning to electronic patient signatures is also helping SVMHS meet the demands of EHR Meaningful Use by ensuring consistent data is captured electronically for each patient at the point of registration.
“Patient signatures and e-forms go into a patient’s medical record right away, which eliminates the chance of document loss and means fewer steps for registrars,” Powell said.
In an era of healthcare reform, the IT/IS teams at healthcare systems across the country, including SVMHS has to manage an increasing number of applications. This means it’s crucial to find systems that are low maintenance and are well supported by vendors. Powell says that Access’s e-Signature solution checks both these boxes.
“We haven’t had to call Access support in the past three years but when I did recently, they got back to me in 40 minutes,” he said. “Charles understands our system so it took him just five minutes to fix the issue.”
As it strives to eliminate even more paperwork, SVMHS is extending its Access project to patient bedsides. Nurses will soon capture electronic signatures on surgery consents using Wacom STU-500 tablets connected to Workstations on Wheels (WOWs).
“Getting Access e-Signature seems like a no-brainer for hospitals,” Powell said. “It’s affordable, you set it up easily and it just works.”
About Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System
Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System (SVMHS) is an integrated network of health care programs, services and facilities. At the core of the System is an acute care, public district hospital licensed for 269 beds. Several distinct specializations and programs at SVMHS include the Regional Heart Program, the Stanford Cardiac Surgery Program at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, the Comprehensive Cancer Center, a Level III Neonatal Intensive Care Unit operated in partnership with Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, Joint Replacement Center, Regional Spine Center and Sleep Medicine Center. Salinas Valley Memorial features advanced imaging and diagnostic tools, including the Ryan Ranch Center for Advanced Diagnostic Imaging and the Nancy Ausonio Mammography Center. Salinas Valley Memorial employs more than 1,650 people; its medical staff includes 297 board-certified physicians across a range of specialties. For more information, visit http://www.svmh.com
About Access
For more than 15 years, Access has developed electronic forms management solutions that eliminate the unnecessary expense, risk and inefficiency of paper forms. Our 100 percent paperless technology enables organizations in any industry to capture, manage, sign and share forms data without printing or scanning. Learn more at http://www.accessefm.com and help Access’s partner The Last Well bring clean water and the Gospel to Liberia at http://thelastwell.org
About MEDITECH
Today, more than 2,300 institutions worldwide use MEDITECH’s fully integrated, interoperable EHR to provide healthcare to the communities they serve. Their robust, patient-centered technology spans the healthcare continuum, including unique functional capacity for the following environments: ambulatory care, acute care, long-term care, rehabilitation services, behavioral health, and home care. For more information, visit http://www.meditech.com.
Lindsey Eaton, Access, http://www.accessefm.com, +1 913.752.9938, [email protected]
Share this article