SANTA BARBARA COTTAGE HOSPITAL  
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THE PROBLEM:

Long established and known as an outstanding regional healthcare provider, Cottage Hospital has expanded to three facilities covering most of Santa Barbara County. With this growth came an increased recognition of a need to move their medical records to an electronic imaging system. The substantial human resources required to initiate, maintain, track, and retrieve medical records had become a significant overhead expense. Storage of documents was an increasing problem. In addition, there was an increasing demand by administrators, physicians, nurses and billing clerks to have patient data at their fingertips.

THE SOLUTION: Seeking to move to a paperless environment, Cottage Hospital contracted with nationally recognized IMAGE-X, a firm started and headquartered in Santa Barbara, to help them integrate their optical imaging and data systems without overcomplicating an already complex information array. Using powerful pieces of IMAGE-X’s proprietary software, specifically, MINDS (Management Information Network Document Services), ImageMate and COLD (Computer Generated Output to Laser Disk), physicians can now connect with the front office, a nurse’s station or the business office with ease.

The physician is unable to access patient records in time of emergency from a remote location with out direct hook-up to the hospital’s intranet system. Most hospitals that go electronic store the patient-related images in an index database that is separate from the main healthcare information system. When caregivers are reviewing a patient’s chart, they typically have to close out of the main system, enter into the index database to find an x-ray, for example, and then go back to the original patient chart. Users also have to learn another new application. IMAGE-X developed software that links the scanned-in image to the data without requiring the user to go to a separate database.

With a simple click of a button, records and images are retrieved and displayed on the computer screen at the doctor’s office or home or the nurse’s station in the hospital. To make that happen, Image-X provides a scanner and the software to store the data and images. The scanned information is then sent to MINDS, where it is stored in a “vault” at IMAGE-X. Another IMAGE-X product allows the user to scan documents and index fields that will be needed to update the data. Images are “live”, not created from a secondary system, which keeps the data up-to-the minute and eliminates the possibility of calling up outdated records.

Hospital records are stored on-site because the facility has a full-time information systems management staff that can maintain the system. Multiple groups of physicians link directly to the hospital’s on-site data so they don’t have to worry about details such as making backup copies, running out of hard drive space on their own system, or getting corrupted images.

The application also is web-compliant, which enables physicians at home or in their offices to access medical records through the internet. The program is simple and secure, requiring a PIN code and password to get onto the system. With the Image-X system, physicians simply log onto the hospital’s website, find an icon for the medical record vault, and click on it. They type in the password and PIN code and get immediate access to all the patient files the physicians are authorized to read.

THE BENEFITS:

From an administrative standpoint, Cottage Hospital’s new system has a multitude of adto manage the system. The IMAGE-X supporting network operates on the readily available Microsoft Windows NT operating system as well as IBM, AIX and UNIX platforms. IMAGE-X software is truly cross-platform, very affordable to start up and maintain, easy to manage and very reliable. It’s also modular, allowing scalability to larger capacities, as needs change. “The same information can be used by many diverse departments in the hospital,” says Cottage’s Alberto Kywi, Director of Information Systems/CIO. “IMAGE-X’s technology allows us to use our existing applications, making it user friendly and easy to learn. We can’t afford months of downtime to learn a new system. There is no luxury of time in the business of making people well; we can’t be restricted by the number of physicians who need information access, or by the length of time that we can store reports. This system allows us to conserve our administrative support resources while, at the same time, increase efficiency. Our capital investment is considerably lower than what a traditional mainframe would command, and so much more flexible.”

Recently, IMAGE-X deployed an imaging and COLD system that helps the patient business services office to retrieve the EOB (Explanation of Benefits) documents via internet browser standards. The COLD system helped to electronically archive and permanently store the necessary data and transaction files relating to patient accounting, payment, register files etc. Using COLD technology, the crucial transaction data is just a click away.

On the clinical side of the picture, the hospital is and will be “going digital”. One objective is for Cottage Health System to share information with physicians so that a patient only has to provide their personal information once.Currently Cottage is a three-hospital system and ultimately will connect each site. With the IMAGE-X system, Cottage can manipulate all the information, coming from a variety of sources and locations, and maintain everything under one umbrella. A patient can travel from one facility to another and their records will be at the attending physician’s fingertips.

“There are significant potential savings all the way around; but where we have seen real savings right now,” Kywi explains, “is in the use of valuable staff time.” A significant amount of documentation and overtime costs have been reduced, as well as cost avoidance. “What makes the IMAGE-X product unique is its ability to complement clinical document technology. It has a very easy indexing tool. Archiving technology itself is really off the shelf, there’s no nuclear science involved there”, states Kywi. “This system allows the user to easily sort through a multitude of information simultaneously, whether coming from cardiology, radiology and on down the line.”

Doctors groups are delighted with having quick and easy access to critical data without fear of missing important pieces of patient history, including scanned paper documents, medical images, MRI’s and verbal reports. As doctors and nurses become more efficient through technology, the prime beneficiaries will be the hospital patients. Image -X high powered products allow sharing of patient information across multiple systems and sites, reduces health care delivery cost and increases the quality of care, while meeting HIPAA standards.