No more chart chasing

MONTROSE  — Montrose Memorial Hospital, along with local physicians, is headed towards a more cost effective and medically safer way of handling patient records.

"There is an island of information that happens from doctor to doctor and hospital to hospital that creates a problem," said Mike Lloyd, MMH's QHN project coordinator. "It is a lot of chart chasing."

Quality Health Network, or QHN, changes the way health care providers communicate — moving offices from a chart and paper world into the electronic era.

Each time a doctor pulls someone's chart, which is usually stored among hundreds of others, it costs the patient about $5, Lloyd said.

"These are expensive people using expensive time," he said.

QHN is a Web-based network that is spreading across the Western Slope. It allows only authorized users, through account and password security, to access records on a patient that has been stored by others using the system. Information includes lab results, emergency room notes, progress reports, radiology and surgical information. It also connects with pharmacies, allowing doctors to review past prescriptions, so not to duplicate or complicate medications, as well as putting a tighter watch on prescription abuse.

"It checks for allergies and interactions," Lloyd said.

The network also becomes helpful in sharing X-rays, current vaccinations and local health fair results.

It becomes extremely helpful to emergency room staff, allowing them to pull someone's medical history moments after a patient arrives at the ER.

It also opens coordination between physicians and mental health therapists, as they too are looking into being connected to the network, Lloyd said.

The system is programed to recognize insurance eligibility, but does not share the information with insurance companies. For health care providers not online, the network knows the right method of contact.

"It has the smarts to fax, print, or send electronically based on the user profile," Lloyd said. "It creates a tighter alliance between hospitals and physicians."

Lloyd hopes MMH will be online by the end of August and several physicians have also jumped on board to be one of the first to use the network in Montrose.

As far as costs, MMH has invested $250,000 for the infrastructure out of its capital budget. About $14,000 per month will come out of the hospital's information technology budget for such things as the server license, said MMH spokesperson Leann Tobin. This monthly cost is comparable to other program licenses the hospital pays monthly.

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