It's easy to bash healthcare for being costly, complex, and unproductive; common complaints include lost patient information, incomprehensible invoices, poor customer service, medical errors, and arcane delivery systems. But the reality is, with today's highly mobile population, patient information is all over the place and it's just not easy to share it when it really matters. Unfortunately, even though sophisticated healthcare information technology (IT) solutions exist, many small and midsize healthcare organizations struggle to find enough money and time to purchase and maintain advanced practice and clinical information systems. Add in the extensive training and support requirements such systems entail and it's no wonder many organizations find it overwhelming to move from paper-based systems to electronic ones. Here's another way to think about the problem: an incremental solution using everyday business applications and a little bit of IT assistance can go a long way toward cutting costs, improving workflow, and helping employees share information more easily so that patients receive the best care and have a positive experience. Microsoft has been developing these everyday productivity and collaboration applications for a long time and now, with the 2007 Microsoft Office system, these applications are coming together in a way that really makes sense for healthcare processes. While the 2007 release is not designed as a clinical information system or substitute for electronic medical records—it can provide a foundation for rapid and accurate information sharing and analysis. Due to XML and other Web services standards in its architecture, the Office system is now, in effect, an integration platform that provides a familiar front-end to serve up data from disparate back office systems. In this article, I'll talk about the 2007 Microsoft Office release and discuss two companies—the Menninger Clinic in Houston and Clarian Health—that have benefited by using it. The 2007 Microsoft Office system and healthcare productivityHere are a few highlights of the 2007 Office system that relate specifically to healthcare productivity needs: | • | A ubiquitous platform: With 450 million users worldwide, the Microsoft Office system is the most widely-accepted, familiar, and easy-to-use desktop application suite for employees in any industry. | | • | Web-based forms for quicker processes: Employees can fill out Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 forms in a Web browser using InfoPath Forms Services technology (with a keyboard, pen, or microphone). Then, they can submit forms to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 libraries for storage and deploy document management tasks such as rights management to protect data and set rules on its use. | | • | Better workflow and collaboration: The latest features of the Office SharePoint 2007 document sharing and portal technology include automated workflows for common business activities such as document approval, issue tracking, and signature collection; compliance support through flexible storage and auditing policies; access to business data found in common line-of-business systems like SAP and Oracle; and the integration capabilities of a Web services-based architecture. | | • | Improved search capabilities: Search is an integral part of the 2007 release, including the Instant Search pane for locating Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 items and Enterprise Search in Office SharePoint Server 2007 for finding business documents across all applications. In healthcare, this enables rapid access to business and clinical information from any desktop or mobile computing device, which can help employees save time and better serve patients. |
The Microsoft Office-based approach is perfect for an organization that doesn't need or can't afford a full-fledged third-party healthcare information system or has unique needs but is reticent to pay a consultant for two years of custom development. Below you'll learn what the Menninger Clinic and Clarian Health are doing with Microsoft Office system technology. Behavioral health clinic cuts down on paper-shuffling and gains time for patientsThe Menninger Clinic is an international psychiatric hospital with 400 employees located in Houston, Texas. At least two IT problems were causing staff to spend too much time shuffling paperwork and reentering data: a slow, overburdened Web-based forms system and several unconnected third-party applications housing patient data. IT director Terry Janis and Microsoft partner Insource Technology developed an integrated clinical information system based on Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Office InfoPath 2007 (along with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 for the database). Here's a brief rundown on the benefits so far of the Menninger Clinical Information System (MCIS): | • | Patient information in one place: Staff can enter the individual's name or birth date into MCIS and instantly view a page summarizing the patient's health history and treatment with a list of 20 to 25 relevant forms. | | • | More efficient patient management activities: Now, staff can make room and bed assignments, assign a treatment team, or discharge a patient without entering data into multiple forms and systems. It all takes place within MCIS. | | • | Easier information sharing among providers: Assessments, care plans, and other documents can be stored in and accessed from Office SharePoint Server 2007 using any authorized desktop or device. |
In addition to the time-savings the new system brings, it is also enabling cost cutting to the tune of $80,000 annually on application development and maintenance. Provider finds a better system for maintaining and tracking critical policiesCompliance is always top of mind for healthcare organizations—and that goes beyond patient privacy and quality of care initiatives. The policies within the IT department are also critical because they help keep patient information secure and accurate. Clarian Health, an Indianapolis-based healthcare system consisting of three hospitals, developed an IT policy management system based on Office SharePoint Server 2007. The new system, Policies and Procedures Management System (PPMS), maintains 31 policies and approximately 50 procedures. The procedures are integrated with automated workflows to make it easier for employees to create, review, approve, and then distribute them with the proper controls. (Healthcare organizations could also use Office SharePoint 2007 to store and share clinical documents—which would enable a quick search for documents containing a drug name, disease, or other information that needs modification in case of events such as a drug recall). The PPMS, developed in concert with Crowe Chizek, a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner, merged policies and procedures across various systems and also established a standard process for creating new procedures. The new system is helping Clarian in the following ways: | • | More efficient employee self-service: The PPMS solution gives employees a central gateway to all the information system (IS)-related data they need and helps them find it 80 percent faster. | | • | Faster process for new policy creation: Repeatable workflows allow employees to create and approve policies and procedures in half the time. | | • | Streamlined knowledge management: The advent of a central location for storing policy and procedure information is not only an important knowledge management strategy—it also makes compliance and auditing requirements easier to manage. |
The Menninger Clinic and Clarian Health are just two examples of how the Microsoft Office system can simplify workflow; other customers are improving processes to help set up new hires or report hazardous events. Consider the impact on your organization of a more integrated nurse scheduling application, a faster referral process, or a more intuitive physician order entry system. Such solutions are not always "rocket science"—but add them up, and you get closer to a common goal for healthcare reform: speedy access to information at the point of care and everywhere else it is needed, which helps deliver safer, higher quality, and more effective care to patients. Affordable technology is finally helping even small and midsize healthcare providers do what the big providers have been doing for years. Just don't feel as if you must reinvent your information strategy all at once. Select a small yet important project crying out for a smoother, more integrated workflow—and see where it leads your organization.
 | Dr. Bill Crounse, M.D.
Dr. Bill Crounse, M.D., is senior director, worldwide health for Microsoft Corporation. Dr. Crounse is responsible for working with industry partners and healthcare organizations to help them benefit from using Microsoft technologies and solutions. Prior to joining Microsoft, Dr. Crounse was vice president and chief medical information officer for Overlake Hospital Medical Center and the Overlake Venture Center in Bellevue, Wash. Also, read Dr. Crounse's Healthcare Web log to get more insights into the latest technologies and trends in the healthcare industry. |
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