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Carle Clinic Fully Implements
Electronic Medical Records
Clinic among top 15 percent in the nation to move to
electronic recordkeeping
URBANA-One
hundred percent of Carle Clinic physicians, clinical staff and
departments are now using a new Electronic Medical Records (EMR)
program. Current and past patients of Carle Clinic could benefit.
Under the new system, doctors have immediate electronic access to
medical information. This can help determine a patient’s past
treatments and medications to clarify if that person might have an
allergy, or if a newly prescribed drug might interact with a
medicine prescribed earlier.
“We’ve put in a tremendous
number of training hours. Tech staff taught each clinician how to
use the system on the floors. We trained a department a week to be
certain that everyone understands how to use EMR most efficiently,”
explained John Stoll, MD, Medical Director, Carle Clinic
Association.
2900 employees are trained on
Carle Clinic’s EMR system. Physicians use electronic tablets in
patient care rooms instead of paper files. This eliminates the need
for a great deal of storage space in each department. Once paper
files are scanned into the system, those documents are stored to be
shredded and destroyed at a later date.
“We’ve learned that in case of
disaster, having an electronic record of a patient’s history and
current profile is much safer. Electronic records don’t burn,
or become saturated in a flood,” said Michael Sutter, Carle Clinic
Director of Clinical Systems IT.
“We’ve gone to great lengths to
protect patients’ privacy as well,” Sutter explains further. “Even
if a hacker could get into our system, there are many layers of
security and everything is password protected. Electronic Medical
Records will help patients get more efficient medical care, and
better protection for their personal health information.”
In less than three years, Carle
Clinic has installed EMR software, trained clinical staff, and
implemented the entire electronic medical records system in all
locations, including the 10 regional clinics. Also in that time, 10
years of lab data, eight years of radiology images, and eight years
of dictated notes were included in the records. At some point,
patients will also be able to access their own personal medical
records.
“EMR implementation will also
allow doctors to monitor their patients’ progress. The Health Care
Summary allows the physician to quickly see if an immunization or
preventative test is due. The EMR can help our patients maintain a
healthier life,” added Dr. Stoll.
Only about 15 percent of
physicians and clinics in the nation operate using electronic
records as the sole record keeping tool.
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