Behavioral well being suppliers are below rising stress to fulfill rising demand whereas managing more and more complicated care wants. To enhance workflows, KVC Well being Programs, a corporation centered on behavioral well being and youngster welfare, partnered with WellSky to implement WellSky Specialty Look after Behavioral Well being – an EHR (Digital Well being File) designed particularly for behavioral well being suppliers. KVC is now totally operational with the platform throughout its community.
Healthcare Innovation just lately spoke with KVC CIO Lonnie Johnson concerning the implementation of the brand new EHR.
May you inform us why your group adopted a brand new EHR?
We have been within the EHR enterprise for about 18 years now. We have been utilizing what we name a third-party EHR, and initially we had been with one group, and as we began to develop as a corporation during the last 5 to seven years, we have seen some exponential progress inside the group by mergers and acquisitions. We would have liked one thing that was extra extensible, one thing extra versatile. We would have liked one thing that might change with our change.
What had been a number of the parameters that you just had when searching for a brand new EHR?
One was superior analytics, and the opposite was synthetic intelligence. We’re about to pilot one in every of their new AI options right here in a few weeks.
How did you discover the method from discovering the brand new EHR system to implementation?
We’re very methodical about buying new expertise. We do some crucial evaluation. We do some demos. We carry folks in. We ask: can we take a look at drive it? Once we say we carry folks in, we even have them on website and speak with their representatives. We take a look at a few of their current clients to see how they prefer it. We begin paring it down as a management staff; all of us get collectively and begin wanting on the completely different choices and the completely different the explanation why or why not we must always go along with a selected one. After which as soon as we make our resolution.
It is a matter of turning into a associate with the EHR supplier. We now have an excellent mission administration staff at our firm, and so our mission administration staff blends with their mission administration staff for the implementation section. On this explicit case, we needed to do an expedited implementation as a result of we wanted to have this EHR prepared for a brand new hospital that we had been constructing. We had been capable of implement this in nearly half the time that you’d do a traditional EHR implementation.
This took a variety of teamwork and coordination, a variety of mission administration expertise to have the ability to pull some issues out and put some issues apart. It was an enormous enterprise, however we had been capable of pull it off, and it went fairly easily.
What sort of points did you expertise, and the way did you clear up them?
There’s at all times the unknown. So these issues, you must take care of after the actual fact. We had been anticipating it to work, and it did not. These had been a few minor issues. We had been capable of get with the EHR supplier rapidly. They had been very conscious of our wants, gave us devoted assist at no additional price, and rapidly repaired and acquired these issues working in the best order.
When did you go dwell with the brand new system?
We went dwell in January of this 12 months. We did it in phases. We had 5 areas, and we accomplished three of them in January, after which we accomplished the remaining two over the subsequent six months.
What have you ever seen to date?
It has been clean. I have been doing system implementation most likely for about 35 years. And this is among the smoother ones. When you have got these large ones, there’s at all times going to be one thing that goes incorrect. Even though we needed to do it quicker than regular, I might say we skilled about the identical quantity of fallout that we might have if we might have carried out it on the common time.
Do you have got any connectivity with physical-health EHRs or information?
We work intently. We’re doing what we name joint ventures now. That implies that we’re working with different bigger hospital techniques. There’s one in Kansas Metropolis known as Youngsters’s Mercy Hospital. What we’re doing is doing a three way partnership with them. When youngsters come to their emergency division (ED) for bodily issues, and if they’ve behavioral or emotional points as properly, they ship them to us. There’s some interoperability.
May you converse to some ongoing enhancements to the system?
I’ve an AI street map that is going to embody just about all of our performance throughout the company, whether or not it is foster care, inpatient care, monetary providers, HR, something that we do. AI is a big enterprise that we’re doing, and that performance within the Wellsky EHR that I used to be telling you about, which we’re testing now, falls proper according to our AI street map that we’re rolling out proper now throughout the company. AI is an ongoing, new lifestyle for us. We’re utilizing it to just about remodel our enterprise mannequin.
What are a number of the benefits that you just foresee?
With AI, the commonest factor that folks discuss is creating efficiencies, which saves time. We’re seeing that, nevertheless it additionally enhances the consumer expertise. Persons are extra engaged. Now they do not have that extra burdensome work the place they need to do a variety of documentation. Like case managers, they exit and see youngsters all day for behavioral well being, after which they arrive house and do documentation over dinner for a few hours whereas they’re making an attempt to get their children tucked in. Nicely, if we are able to use AI to scale back that paperwork by 60-70 %, then we give them again a giant chunk of their life. We’re bettering the standard of care as a result of the knowledge now has the next high quality. There are much less human errors. The info has greater high quality, due to this fact the standard of care is greater.
What has been the suggestions from workers utilizing the brand new EHR?
Lots of them are very comfortable. It coincides with a variety of the workflows that we’ve. It coincides with a variety of the workflows we’ve wished to do. Now there are some people who find themselves getting adjusted to it as a result of there’ll at all times be individuals who do not regulate to vary very properly. That is simply human nature. Total, the outcomes are very constructive. Nobody needs to return to the outdated means of doing issues, that is for positive.
Do you have got any recommendation for different healthcare leaders who’re taking a look at completely different EHR techniques?
I might say do your homework. Do not take this resolution frivolously. When you make that call, you are caught with it for 2 to a few years. You wish to just remember to’re making the best resolution. Get to know that expertise supplier, go to their workplace, meet the CEO, ask them what their plans are for expertise. What does their future street map seem like? And once more, meet with a few of their present clients. Ask them how they’re doing and what the transition was like for them. That shall be useful in getting you settled on whether or not to make that transition with that exact supplier or not.
