Customer Testimonials

We have used the dbtech system and are realizing the cost saving benefits as well as the ease of use in distributing reports. We are continually finding more uses than intended for the Ras solution and expect more savings in the future. — 

SAINT MICHAEL’S MEDICAL CENTER

Saint Michael’s Medical Center Saves Big with eForms

By converting printed medical forms to eForms, Saint Michael’s Medical Center streamlined admissions, improved record keeping efficiency, and reduced print-related costs, saving more than $345,000 annually.

To operate, hospitals require many physical objects – beds, medical instruments, medications and equipment, among others. One type of object perhaps not as often associated with hospitals, but vital to their operation nonetheless, has been paper. Lots of paper. Hospitals such as Saint Michael’s Medical Center generate mountains of paper, or at least they have, until recently.

Saint Michael’s is a 357-bed hospital in the heart of Newark, New Jersey. Opened in 1867 by the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor, the hospital has been at its current site since 1871.

A beloved Newark institution, it provides tertiary care, while functioning as a teaching hospital and research center. Known as an innovator, it was the first medical institution in New Jersey to perform open-heart surgery and the first to develop a cardiac catheterization program. Today, it is a major teaching affiliate of the Seton Hall University School of Graduate Medical Education, the New England College of Osteopathic Medicine, and Saint George’s University School of Medicine.

Paper Crisis in American Hospitals, a 2003 study conducted by Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, found that an estimated 60 pieces of paper are generated for each hospital patient visit.

CBS News later reported in a 2009 broadcast about rural hospitals, that, “it’s not uncommon for patients … to accumulate a 2-inch-thick binder of paper records during a week-long stay.” Paper is not just associated with medical records but with registration and other record keeping at hospitals. The number of different forms at Saint Michael’s, like at many hospitals, numbers in the hundreds. Read more …

GREENWOOD LEFLORE HOSPITAL

Document Management Brings Greenwood Leflore Hospital Back Down To Earth

Between all the clinical and business documents related to treatment and service charges, by the time a patient has been discharged from Greenwood Leflore Hospital in North Central Mississippi their care will have amassed nearly 75 sheets of paper if they are an outpatient; 100 if their stay is longer than 24 hours.

With 168,000 patient visits annually, including 11,000 inpatients, Greenwood Leflore generated a stack of paper reaching high into the stratosphere. If pre-printed forms for non-clinical departments were added to the stack, the hospital could produce enough paper to stretch to the moon.

Located in Greenwood, Mississippi Greenwood Leflore Hospital serves six counties and is one of the largest hospitals in the region, with more than a dozen medical services and 18 outpatient satellite clinics. Since 2006, 10 departments and all patient care units have been relying on nearly 500 pre-printed forms for their business processes, often having to redesign the forms to suit their unique department needs.

“Nothing was standardized,” said April May, RN, the hospital’s clinical specialist and reporting document management administrator for nursing services. “Form changes were difficult to maintain.”

Departmental forms grew obsolete and had to go back to the printer for revisions. Documents went missing and were time-consuming to retrieve; information was often illegible. According to May, nearly 20 percent of hospital staff time was spent on manually processing. Read more …

PALISADES MEDICAL CENTER

Palisades Medical Center Goes Full-Tilt With Document Management

Jim Bowden is on a mission to round-up and digitize every paper document related to patient care at Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, N.J., as the hospital embarks on an EMR installation in the next 18 months. Before Palisades goes live with Siemens Soarian Electronic Medical Records (EMR) system, Jim, Palisades’ Director of Patient Financial Services, will have his team transfer all patient billing information into a document management system.

According to a recent article in Healthcare Data Management (“Bridging the Gap,” 8/12/10), “… the advent of EMR may spur even more need for document management systems … For many organizations, they are a transitional bridge to EMR.”

Palisades runs a 202-bed hospital and a 245-bed nursing home and rehabilitation center. The State’s annual healthcare report card ranks Palisades Medical Center as one of the top hospitals in New Jersey and #1 in Hudson County. Its nursing home, The Harborage at Palisades, has “Zero Deficiencies” – a result that is earned by only 3% of nursing homes in the U.S.

When Bowden took his post at Palisades in 2008 he was determined to earn the same stellar ranking for the Palisades business office and patient admissions information. Bowden, who is accountable for Palisades’ Business Office operations, and a 38-year health care management veteran, set out to automate all patient records. Read more …

MOUNT ST. MARY’S & EVANGELICAL

Two Hospitals Replace Outdated Machine And Clinical Processes With dbtech Ras

Mount St. Mary’s Hospital & Health Center, based in Lewiston, N.Y., serves the people of Niagara County and is part of Ascension Health, the largest Catholic health system in the U.S. When patients come to the upstate N.Y. hospital to deliver their first child, undergo a surgical procedure or have an MRI, they go through a registration process that up until recently was handled with a machine that harkens back to the mid 1800s.

Upon registering, new patients would bring their personal information, which would be keyed into old and costly addressograph embosser machines. The addressograph would imprint the information on to patient wristbands and pre-printed forms attached to patients’ charts. Oftentimes reading the information was difficult. Read more …

ADDITIONAL REPORTS

Please contact us to obtain copies of the following case studies and white papers:

• Hospital Evaluates a Siemens-based ECM Solution, but Finds Ras is a Better Fit
• Small Community Hospital Installs Imaging System and Achieves ‘Million’ Dollar Benefits at a Fraction of the Cost
• The Move From Paper, to Simplicity and Savings
• An Rx for a Healthier Medical Records Department
• Hospital Adds Facilities and Finds Ras, an Affordable EDM Solution that will Support their Growth
• From Chaos to Competence and Compliance