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S O F T W A R E
S O L U T I O N
tem," says Cheri Sarasin, RN, BSN, a charge nurse who was instrumental in bringing Memorial's new EMR online. The center couldn't
even add physicians, employees or inventory without sending
requests to the former company and waiting for a rep to respond. It
was a painstaking and time-consuming process.
The new vendor provided a chart template and worked tirelessly
with the facility's leaders to build an electronic document specifically
for them. They added and deleted menus and pages until they were
satisfied with the final product. The system integrates with Memorial's
software for scheduling, patient pre-admission, coding and billing, and
health records. The vendor also built in templates of reports the center needs to run regularly, including CMS reporting measures, safe
surgery checklists and antibiotic timing documentation.
Because the center customized many parts of the system, they can
continually edit menus, pages and reports as needed, including:
• Drop-dow n menus. Staff members entering patients' health
histories click on a drop-down menu to choose from an exhaustive
list of surgical procedures. Ms. Sarasin says they were able to identify
the procedures they never had to select and have them removed from
the list. It was a simple step that limits the choices staff scroll through
when entering information, which ultimately saves time during the
charting process.
• List of comorbidities. They customized the list of comorbidities patients could present with by rewording lengthy technical names
so they matched what the staff actually calls them. Again, it was a
simple change that lets nurses more easily identify the items they're
looking for and spend less time entering information.
• Discharge directions. The system lets Memorial's staff develop
discharge directions per physician, meaning recovery room nurses can
print out specific post-op directives with the click of a mouse.
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O U T PAT I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E O N L I N E | N O V E M B E R 2013
