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TRH Has New IBEX PulseCheck System in the Emergency Department
Computerized patient charts allow for increased accuracy and safety
Campbellsville, Ky. – At some point in your lifetime, you have probably made at least one trip to the Emergency Department. Each trip probably included filling out a mountain of paperwork, sitting in the waiting room while the paperwork was properly filed and finally waiting for the physician to write out your prescriptions and discharge papers before you could leave the hospital.
Taylor Regional Hospital now has a computerized IBEX system to allow an increase in quality patient care and satisfaction, while evaluating a decrease in medical errors and decreased costs through improvements in coding and billing. The Emergency Department began nurse documentation on the IBEX system on March 14. By Mid-April, the system will be used for physician documentation as well.
The IBEX tracking board allows nurses and physicians to keep up with all of the patients in the ED. The board tells the patient’s name and age, the room they are in, what they are being treated for, the doctors and nurses who are treating them, what medications they have been given and when they last took it, their length of stay and comments from nurses and doctors. The board also color-codes each patient by the urgency of their care to allow for an increased awareness of that person’s care.
When a patient checks into the ED, their medical history, allergies, medications and any other relevant patient information are entered into the IBEX system at the Triage area. If that person ever comes back to the ED in the future, their information can be automatically pulled up on the computer and updated without having to wait for the paperwork to be filled out.
“This allows physicians to look up any past treatments, what medications they were given and what they were told to do, and it is all easily accessible through this system,” said Emergency Department nurse Angie Johnson. “The system also alerts us to any possible medical interactions, which is a double-check on the patient’s safety while they are here.”
While the IBEX is customized for Taylor Regional Hospital, it is a very widely used system. The IBEX has been in the Louisville Jewish Medical Centers since 2003. A federal grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) for the development of health information technology has made this enhancement possible for several rural hospitals in Kentucky and Indiana. The other hospitals receiving the AHRQ grant are Clark Memorial Hospital in Jeffersonville, Indiana, and Scott Memorial Hospital in Scottsburg, Indiana.
The four main goals of this grant are to implement the Ibex PulseCheck and train nurses and physicians to use the system correctly, assess the reduction in medical errors and waiting time in the Emergency Departments, evaluate the reduction in costs through improved diagnostic coding, billing and fewer repeat tests, and evaluate patient and physician satisfaction.
The new system includes an interface with the hospitals’ ADT systems, alphanumeric paging, charge capture, e-mail and faxing functions and discharge instructions. Also included are nursing and physician documentation, laboratory and radiology order entry and order status interfaces. The discharge instructions are customized for each patient, which allows the patient to understand exactly what they were treated for and what they can do to get better once they get home. Another increased security function is the computerized prescriptions the system provides. Physicians can now simply print out the prescriptions for patients, which will reduce the number of attempted fraudulent prescriptions. Physicians can also fax ER reports to the follow-up physicians for each patient.
The new IBEX system is definitely more accurate and an increased safety measure for patients at TRH. Team members attended a four-hour training session prior to the installment of the system and representatives from the IBEX company were here to assist nurses on the first day of system operation.
Bill Edwards, Taylor Regional Hospital’s Emergency Department Director, said, “My monthly reports used to take three hours to complete. With the IBEX PulseCheck I can finish the report in about five minutes.”
This system will eventually be a great help to the staff and patients at the hospital. Any new system takes time to adjust and become familiar with, but the physicians and nurses at Taylor Regional Hospital can already see what a difference this system is going to make.
*Some information obtained from the July 28, 2005 News Release “Jewish Hospital HealthCare Services’ to Add Ibex PulseCheck to Rural Hospital Emergency Departments”
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