Related Items
A New Battery Of Tests For Lab Systems
September 2007
When ordering certain laboratory tests, some physicians at Northeast Georgia Diagnostic Clinic in Gainesville always wind up ordering a second accompanying test. Until recently, that meant placing an order for the initial test in the laboratory information system, then ordering the accompanying test when the physician later wanted it.
Now new capabilities in the latest version of the Harvest laboratory information system from Orchard Software Corp. enable the accompanying test to automatically be ordered when the physician's first test order is entered. Updated functionality in the clinic's 6-year-old lab system offers much more flexibility in rulemaking, says Pam Helton, clinical applications manager. "I can build rules in any combination conceivable," she notes. "There are probably 15 criteria I can select to customize my rules."
Lab systems may be mature technology, but users never run out of enhancements they'd like to see, says Curt Johnson, vice president of sales and marketing at Carmel, Ind.-based Orchard Software.
For instance, new financial decision support functions in the company's system can detect that an ordered test should be paid by a patient's secondary insurer, or that a specific set of services should be bundled on a single claim for some commercial payers but separated for Medicare.
Another decision support enhancement will automatically flag tests ordered "stat" from the emergency department to make sure the report does not first go to the medical records department before being sent to the ER.
When the Harvest system first hit the market, nearly all enhancements were driven by the vendor's development staff. However, about 70% of enhancements to the Harvest lab system now are customer-driven, Johnson estimates.
Customers are more engaged because of the pressure to fold their lab systems into broader initiatives to make clinical workflow a seamless experience for caregivers.
Many hospitals and physician practices, for example, are trying to bring new value to their information technology investments by interfacing the lab and electronic health records systems. An initiative in Indianapolis, for instance, is enabling hospitals in the region to transmit test results and other information directly to the applicable patient charts in physicians' ambulatory EHRs.
In addition, more provider organizations are participating in genomic research and are looking for new tools out of their lab systems to improve collaboration among researchers.
Getting A Head Start
One way to get new functionality out of a lab system is to partner with the vendor as it develops the system or works on upgrades.
Being a beta site is giving Southern Regional Health System in Riverdale, Ga., the opportunity to drive new functionality, says Donna Waggoner, managing director of the heart and vascular service line and clinical laboratory.
Southern Regional Medical Center this summer started a three-month beta test of anatomic pathology software that McKesson Corp. soon will make commercially available. The San Francisco-based vendor previously has resold another company's anatomic pathology.
The 372-bed hospital already uses many products from McKesson and went live two years ago on the vendor's core Horizon laboratory information system along with blood bank and mobile phlebotomy modules. The new anatomic pathology software will replace an 18-year-old system.
"We will validate the system in a daily environment and provide functional enhancements to make the product more market-viable," Waggoner says. One new function will speed turnaround time for pathology results by reducing the time it takes for pathologists to receive additional tests they need for an exam.
As a pathologist reads slides and decides a special stain is needed, a mouse click will enable the physician to immediately order the stain from technicians.
The product also will provide enhanced reporting functions for quality management and correlation of results to patient outcomes.
When the hospital put in the other laboratory components in 2005, the implementation team mapped out new workflow processes for many staff functions. However, "there were a couple scenarios where we didn't adopt new processes and had growing pains," says April Bashaw, pathology and outreach manager.
I.T. Spotlights
- About Us
- Advertising/Media Kit
- Reprints
- Editorial Calendar
- Contact Us
- Customer Service
- Privacy Statement
©2008 HealthDataManagement and SourceMedia, Inc. All rights reserved.
SourceMedia is an Investcorp company.
Use, duplication, or sale of this service, or data contained herein, is strictly prohibited.
