MEDITECH - EPI and Medical Records

MEDITECH
EPI and Medical Records
product brief

MEDITECH's Enterprise Patient Index (EPI) and Medical Records application provides multiple and single facility health care organizations critical patient identification and medical record functions to integrate care delivery. For each facility in the organization, the application ensures a common means to identify patients and to correctly apply all care information for previously admitted patients.

Equally effective in a small organization as it is in a large enterprise, the EPI is a shared database of demographic, insurance, and visit history information for every patient in the integrated care delivery system.

Highlights:
   • Easy addition of new patients for multiple facilities, with demographic and insurance information stored in a single file that is accessible across the enterprise
   • Separate patient numbering schemes for different facilities, to prevent duplicate records and misidentification of patients
   • Record locator functions assist with tracking medical records via audit trails, reminder letters, and reports
   • Tracking for incomplete medical records links with transcription features in the Imaging and Therapeutic Services application, for automatic generation of deficiencies
   • Electronic Signature capabilities
   • Correspondence feature organizes requests as well as generates letters and reports to help organize workflow and revenues.

Standard Features

Efficient Addition of New Patients and Managed Care Members
The application allows all providers in your enterprise to add new patients at any time.
• New patients can be added by any facility, whether it is using MEDITECH's information system or another vendor's system
• All members on the enrollment database are automatically assigned to the EPI. Therefore, demographic and insurance information for all managed care members is on-line at all enterprise facilities before members schedule their first appointments.
• When a patient visits a facility within the enterprise for the first time, or calls for his or her first appointment, registration and scheduling personnel create a new record. All pertinent demographic and insurance information is collected and then stored in a central file across the health care enterprise.

Positive Patient Identification
Positive identification within the EPI eliminates duplicate patients, some features include:
• Providers are able to search the EPI by name, partial name, sex, date of birth, Social Security number, or by Soundex search
• At the point of admission, registration personnel have the option to view patient pictures on-line

Clinical Histories
The application also stores basic clinical history information and makes it available to all providers. This first level of clinical information on a patient includes:
• A visit history which lists visits, providers visited, and date of visit
• A history of the patient's encounters
• A list of all the patient's visits, along with the diagnosis associated with each visit.

More in-depth clinical information is reserved for the Enterprise Medical Record (EMR). The EMR contains all aspects of clinical information from each visit conducted along the continuum of care. In order to protect patient confidentiality and security, records can be sealed so only specific users will have viewing access.

Individual Facility Identification
Individual providers across the enterprise maintain the separate patient numbering schemes required at their own facilities. While all providers participate in the enterprise-wide patient identification system, individual facilities also have their own numbering systems for internal management functions.

The EPI supports both the facility-specific numbering for individual providers and the universal "one number, one patient" scheme that is crucial for enterprise management. This assures that there is no duplication of patients nor confusion in patient identification.

HL7 Interface to other vendors’ systems
The application is designed to work with software from other vendors. For example, a user in a networked facility not using MEDITECH software can get the patient's demographic, insurance, and patient history information from the MEDITECH system through an HL7 query/response interface.

Process Patient Worklist
The process patient worklist allows users to perform multiple functions on one patient or a list of patients within a single routine. By selecting a search criteria, users have the ability to sign out/return records, process incomplete records, and track correspondence requests.

Tracking Medical Records
From any workstation, users have the ability to locate and review all medical records residing on the HCIS. Patient information can be retrieved from any computerized department within the hospital or at remote sites such as physicians' offices or satellite laboratories.
• Record locator functions provide an efficient method for tracking medical records and maintaining on-line data about each recipient. These locator functions:
   – print reminder letters and reports monitoring location of the records checked out
   – enable users to view any record and display the record's current location
   – generate an audit trail and recipient inquiry
   – list locator records sorted by terminal digit, recipient, or reservation
   – enable users to reserve records
   – allow records to be moved from one location to another without having to return and sign the record out.
• Bar code capabilities facilitate record reading and data entry
• Linking of the incomplete records and record locator functions expedite tracking of incomplete records and allows for automatic reservations and returns
• Batch Sign Out and Reserve Record routines allow users to process records being signed out to a recipient.

Incomplete Medical Records Check
Medical Records functionality helps users define which records are incomplete and the care providers responsible for completing them. The system generates:
• Tallies, by physician, on the number of days each medical record portion is considered incomplete
• Notification letters and several lists, including:
   – Incomplete Record Lists (Days Outstanding, Terminal Digit, or Name)
   – Doctor Incomplete Lists (Days Outstanding, Terminal Digit, or Name)
   – Incomplete Record Count
   – Delinquent Record Count.
• A batch routine to expedite the process of completing many records at one time
• An audit trail signifying the user, date, and time for incomplete records processing, which lists who entered, deleted, and/or completed a record
• A link to transcription features within MEDITECH's Imaging and Therapeutic Services application which allows deficiencies to be automatically generated and completed via electronic signature
• Automatic deficiencies for history, physicals, and discharge summaries not transcribed within the facility-defined time frame.

Correspondence Feature
A Correspondence Feature provides a medical records department an efficient tool for tracking requests for medical information, generating reports for monitoring workflow and revenues, and printing letters and reports of correspondence. These functions allow an organization to oversee the processing of requests for medical information from the time the request arrives at the medical records department to the time a staff member sends the requested information.

Medical Records Maintenance and Control
Several reports are generated that help health information administrators review activities taking place throughout the health care organization, such as:
• Verify Daily Assignments
• Unit Number Assignment Log
• Edit Transaction Log
• Monthly Logs of New Medical Records
• Merge/Unmerge Transaction Log
• Duplicate Patient Report
• Duplicate Social Security Report
• Delete/Restore Log
• Missing Data List
• Population Count
• User Activity Log.

For more information about us, contact a MEDITECH Marketing Representative

MEDITECH
Medical Information Technology, Inc.
MEDITECH Circle
Westwood, MA 02090
781-821-3000
www.meditech.com