Thoughtful investments are helping critical access hospitals make the most of their limited technology budgets and staffs. IT-powered patient safety tools are a priority, particularly for medication orders and administration. Nurses at CAHs are three times more likely than those at least wired hospitals to match medications at the bedside, while CAH physicians and nurses enter nearly twice as many orders electronically than do the same clinicians at least wired organizations. Investments in medication reconciliation have also paid off. CAHs use IT to develop, compare and provide medication lists far more than least wired organizations.
Investing in physician efficiency is a savvy step for CAHs, which often struggle with recruiting and retaining clinicians. These hospitals provide multiple access points for image review, CPOE and the EMR. While they can’t match the near-ubiquitous access provided by the Most Wired, CAHs still best the least wired in all areas. Their portals are equipped with support tools, and their physicians are five times more likely to access decision support with medical references than those at least wired hospitals.
CAH’s impressive efforts around data center recovery are also indicative of their focus on patient safety. Forty-five percent can restore system operation within one day, compared with 63 percent of Most Wired and 24 percent of least wired organizations.
Like the least wired, CAHs need to devote more resources to automating the revenue cycle. Tightening up charge and order matching and charge capture reconciliation would help both group’s Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. Denial management also needs improvement.
*Most Wired: Aggregate data for the 100 highest scoring respondents; **Least wired: Aggregate data for the 100 lowest scoring respondents; ***Critical Access Hospitals: Aggregate data for 58 critical access hospitals; Source: H&HN’s Most Wired Survey and Benchmarking Study, 2008