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Excellian improves patient communicationExcellian, the newly implemented automated medical record system at New Ulm Medical Center, means many things to many people. It can mean quicker access to a patient’s chart when they arrive in the Emergency Department in the middle of the night. It can mean improved communication between two physicians in different Allina facilities who are treating the same patient. It can mean timelier turnaround on lab or radiology test results. It can mean better educational opportunities for a patient dealing with a new diagnosis. For some patients, it means all of these things. Dr. Daniel Groebner, an Internal Medicine specialist at New Ulm Medical Center, has had first hand experience with the far-reaching benefits of the automated medical record since it was implemented at New Ulm over the last four months. Groebner has had two patients who were sent to Abbott Northwestern Hospital, another Allina hospital in Minneapolis, for coronary arteriography, following chest pains. Both of these patients had cardiac stress tests done at the medical center, showing positive results. The next step following such a result is to set up an appointment at Abbott for a coronary arteriogram. “Following these tests, the cardiologist will have prescribed treatment and often there are new medications for the patient to take,” Groebner explained. Various other tests may be required for the patient and, always, follow-up with their primary physician back home is necessary. In these particular cases, one patient needed a stent put in and the other did not. “Then there is this enormous task of communicating back to New Ulm what the additional tests showed, what the treatment will be and what medications have been prescribed” Groebner said. “In the past, communication has relied on a telephone call from the cardiologist, faxed reports and test results.” Groebner is still getting a call from the cardiologist, he said. The difference now, with Excellian in place, is that he can sit in front of his computer while on the phone with the cardiologist and both of them can be looking at the patient’s chart or actual test results simultaneously. “I can look right at the tests we are talking about,” Groebner said. “The patient can get very precise information. It doesn’t rely on my memory or whether a fax has been received. It leaves a lot less room for doubt.” When people have had care at another facility and they come back to see their regular doctor, Groebner said, “they always want to know what their test results were. If those reports aren’t there, it is very uncomfortable for the patient and the doctor.” Historically, New Ulm Medical Center has relied heavily on Abbott Northwestern for cardiac care and urgent obstetric care, Groebner said. Before implementation of the automated medical record that can be shared electronically amongst all of the Allina facilities, a patient would have to take information from their charts with them from New Ulm to Abbott. The new system also has benefits that are very subtle and specialized, Groebner noted. As a physician who interprets echocardiograms, Groebner finds that in instances where a patient has had a heart valve replacement it is extremely valuable for him to know, when reading an echocardiogram, the size and kind of heart valve the patient has had inserted. In the past, digging up this information up from the patient’s chart at another facility would have been a time-consuming task. Now, the information is a few keystrokes away. “Patients who are treated at other Allina facilities can feel confident that information is being exchanged much more quickly and that the information sent to another provider is very precise and timely,” Groebner said. |
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New Ulm Medical Center
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