HOUSTON – With the federal government offering both carrot and stick incentives to implement electronic health records, Biggs Gridley Memorial Hospital needed a system that could create the requisite digital environment. After an exhaustive analysis of various options, leaders at the California provider selected an enterprise clinical and financial system that includes an innovative EHR solution from Prognosis Health Information Systems.

"Plain and simple, we needed to quickly move toward electronic health records because the government said we have to. So, we went to every conference and event that had to do with EHRs to gather information and become aware of what options are out there," said David Yarbrough, CEO at the critical access hospital. "But we wanted to select a system that would not only help us meet the government's emerging requirements but one that would help us improve the quality of care and operational efficiency at our hospital here in California."

The ChartAccess® Comprehensive EHR is expected to help the hospital quickly meet the meaningful use requirements needed to qualify for its share of the government's $27 billion in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) incentive funds. In addition, by having an electronic system in place, the hospital will avoid the Medicare reimbursement penalties that are expected to hit providers that are still operating in a paper-based environment in 2015.

Built as a "disruptive innovation," the solution provides a viable alternative to other options by providing a platform that helps community hospitals overcome the cost, speed of implementation, and usability obstacles commonly cited as impediments to electronic records success. A shared web-native EHR system delivered via a cloud computing model, ChartAccess software applications are made available as a service over an encrypted health information network. Intuitive and easy-to-use, the system offers built in analytics and health information exchange (HIE) capabilities, which can help hospitals provide consistent, high-quality patient care.

With clinical care improvement as the ultimate goal, the fact that the system does not just turn data into digital information but enables users to transform the information into intelligence that can be acted upon and reported to various quality initiatives is what made ChartAccess stand out from other systems, according to Yarbrough.

"We will be able to use all of the data in the system and evaluate it to help improve our clinical care. Each and every piece of data can be reported to quality initiatives and used in benchmarking initiatives to improve our performance," Yarbrough said. "Prognosis HIS is just far and away better than other vendors in its ability to provide a system that can do this type of clinical analysis and reporting."

Biggs is planning to go-live on the system early next year, complete implementation within 120 days and then attest to meaningful use to qualify for incentive monies.

"We are offering a disruptive innovation that not only helps hospitals that might have previously been left on the EHR sidelines get into the game but also helps them win the game," said Ramsey Evans, CEO of Prognosis Health Information Systems. "Our powerful solution provides advanced functionality along with an implementation approach that makes it possible to move the needle forward by enabling improved care, instead of merely transforming paper data to electronic data."

About Prognosis Health Information Systems

Prognosis Health Information Systems (PHIS), Houston, is committed to utilizing advanced 21st-Century technologies to help healthcare providers significantly improve the quality, safety and efficiency of patient care while also achieving better financial results. PHIS enables rural and community hospitals to utilize pure browser-based electronic health record (EHR) and financial systems designed to be fully operational in less than six months at a predictable, affordable cost. For more information, visit www.prognosisHIS.com. Follow us on Twitter (@PrognosisHIS).