How Cardiology IT solutions can solve workflow issues

How North Mississippi Medical Center built an innovative user experience and workflow

North Mississippi Medical Center (NMMC) provides acute, diagnostic, therapeutic and emergency services, and is dedicated to being a provider of top patient- and family-centered care.

NMMC’s staff was struggling with long report turnaround times, which slowed diagnoses and hindered patient care. They were searching for a faster, more secure cardiology system to help streamline their workflows to provide faster diagnoses and the best patient care possible.

The new reporting features helped NMMC build an innovative user experience and workflow, with their cardiology team able to access reports from anywhere, anytime. This allowed their physicians and technologists to benefit from easier, faster and more accurate data-consumption and data-entry processes while also empowering their users to easily control and manipulate their reporting applications.

NMMC leveraged our single-database design to help increase its focus on quality outcomes and workflow efficiency, reduce human errors and manual workflows, and enhance its investment in the EMR.

Inefficient workflows, data management and security

North Mississippi Medical Center was seeking a way to enhance patient care by boosting diagnosis efficiency and improving their current workflows. They also needed a way to keep up with the fast pace of technology and platform updates and end-of-life, while keeping customer data secure.

The cardiology market landscape is changing rapidly. Providers need a true partner who will work with them to provide high-level cardiovascular imaging solutions to address their needs.

“The most important consideration in choosing a new cardiology system is to make sure it integrates with every system in your facility, whether it’s purchasing, physician reporting or your charting system,” said Carla Durham, nurse manager.

As a key partner, NMMC was selected as a beta site for the latest version of Change Healthcare Cardiology™.

Anywhere access to all imaging, analysis and reporting

Change Healthcare Cardiology 15.0 allowed NMMC to provide faster onboarding and greater flexibility at scale with tailored workflows to support every site, facility and procedure subtype.

Upgrading NMMC’s system provided a significant improvement in imaging operations. They are now able to:

• Use the new HTML5 reporting platform for pediatrics and congenital echo workflows.
• Help improve their clinical efficiency with the tighter viewer-report connection.
• Enjoy better performance and a higher level of security.

The new echo pediatric and fetal workflows on a new reporting platform were adopted by 100% of physicians. This complete clinical and technological overhaul provided a more clinically sound and efficient diagnostic workflow.

“The adult side has been great, and the new fetal and peds is great. We have not had any issues with the new reports. It seems like it’s allowed us to be a little quicker getting our reports sent to the doctor,” said Katie Mounce, echocardiography supervisor.

NMMC has also utilized the new capabilities to map the structured measurements in the report to the exact image it was taken from, supporting an easier and quicker navigation and connectivity between the report and the viewer.

“In the cath lab, structured reporting is the most important feature in today’s imaging environment,” said Durham.

Along with clinical and interoperability enhancements, the upgrade includes new demonstrable cyber-resilience measures, including multilayered security enhancements for servers and hemodynamic, holding area charting and nurse charting workstations, as well as improved network security, data protection and threat and incident response.

By implementing our technology platform, NMMC has provided their entire care team with anywhere access to all imaging, analysis and reporting. After implementation, the team was surveyed about the new technology and services.

“I feel Change Healthcare Cardiology is the best system out there at this time.” – NMMC survey respondent.

Improved turnaround times with a platform built for faster data consumption

NMMC experienced significant clinical enhancements utilizing the new features, such as the “Take me to the image” tool, which allows them to navigate from the measurements in the report directly to the images the measurements were taken from. The platform allows users to navigate from imported DSR measurements, offline measurements or protocols. The system takes you to the first available corresponding image in the viewer.

“One feature the team enjoys is now they can flag the reports as stat, ASAP or routine, and instead of being sent 15 studies and having to read them in the order that they came in, the new system shows them … you need to read study number 7 first, then study number 3 second,” Mounce said. “I feel like that’s really helped the workflow. We’re not waiting on this stat reports as long.”

The platform provides quick and immediate access to images, complete patient and study data, as well as comprehensive and customizable reporting software in one location, clinician diagnosis can be expeditated to ensure more informed decisions are made for better patient care.

Report templating and customization have also been improved, enabling administrators to find the right balance between consistency across the enterprise and the unique needs of each facility. Instead of a lengthy customization process, physicians can get what they want much faster.

“It seems like with echo and vascular, it’s become easier to customize the reports,” says Ginger Loague, clinical analyst.

By listening to the needs and feedback of North Mississippi Health Services, we were able to bring new features to market that will have a notable impact on the way providers operate. Optum will continue to evolve, helping health systems meet their enterprise imaging needs for clinical quality, operational excellence and financial growth.