LONGVIEW, TX – Emergency departments across the country are feeling the brunt of the economic downturn, with a spike in the number of acute cases and uninsured patients.

By implementing an emergency department information system in January 2005, Good Shepherd Medical Center, is bucking the trend - doing more with less and improving quality of care by capturing more data.

Since 2005, Good Shepherd's ED volume has increased by 15,000 visits, from 72,000 to 88,000 visits.  With MEDHOST's Emergency Department Information System (EDIS), the 407-bed facility has been able to handle the increase because it has decreased its patient throughput from 5.5 hours on average for admittance to four hours and 20 minutes, reducing time patients wait for an inpatient bed by some 1,400 hours monthly, said vice president Ron Short.

Good Shepherd also reduced its "left without being seen" rate from approximately 3.5 percent for 75,000 patients to last fiscal year's 2.3 percent for 90,000 patients. Having the information and help on the front end is instrumental, he said.

In the past, staff had difficulty capturing all charges in the ED.

With the information embedded in the EDIS, charges are driven by nurse and physician documentation. In the first few years after implementation, Good Shepherd saw a $100 per visit improvement in gross revenue, Short said. Even if reimbursement is 50 cents on the dollar, the amount is significant over thousands of patients, he said.
An EDIS' ability to capture all charges - finding lost income and revenue from undercharging and incorrect charging - turns EDs into profit centers, said Craig Herrod, president and CEO of MEDHOST.

The data collected also makes it possible for administrators to look at staffing patterns and implement demand matching to accommodate anticipated spikes in patient arrivals, Short said.

The patient-tracking application's ability to deliver information, such as lab and radiology orders, patient flow and physician visits, in a user-friendly, graphical way is a significant benefit to staff, which in turn improves staff communication and satisfaction, and quality of care, he said. Good Shepherd uses the EDIS as a recruitment and retention tool, Short said.

Patricia Daiker, RN, vice president of marketing for MEDHOST, noted that automated data tracking - "having every chart in my hands at all times" - eliminates the "hunting" of information by nurses, which adds up to a significant amount of lost time. "It empowers you to do a lot more with less," she said.

The EDIS has become a valuable tool on the public health front. Staff can add questions on the fly and collect and track health information from patients at admittance, which helped determine which patients were evacuees from areas hit by Hurricane Rita in 2005, Short said. Now with the outbreak of the H1N1 virus, staff can track data even before public health agencies request it.