Meaningful Use PACS/RIS Dashboard Provides New Capabilities to Enhance Product Performance

New information technology (IT) tools allow healthcare facilities to benchmark and easily report on requirements established for Meaningful Use (MU; A US act, which in a health IT context, defines the use of electronic health records (EHR) and related technologies within a healthcare organization). The MU dashboard monitors nine thresholds for compliance with customizable color-coding and reporting functions.

Agfa HealthCare (Mortsel, Belgium) has added a meaningful use (MU) dashboard to the Impax Business Intelligence solution. Unlike many other systems, Impax Business Intelligence contributes to demonstrating MU of clinical data through its ability to monitor actively the thresholds outlined in stage 1, and readily report on them through the Impax radiology information system (RIS) solution.

“Agfa HealthCare recognizes that for business intelligence systems to be truly effective and valuable for healthcare facilities, they have to monitor and report on the information that can directly and positively influence their operations and bottom line,” said Lenny J. Reznik, director of enterprise imaging and information, Agfa HealthCare, US. “That’s why we’ve worked with our customers to enhance Impax Business Intelligence to give them the tools that they need to achieve results today.”

New functionality available with Impax Business Intelligence provides metrics on processes and workflow, and employs dashboards to collect and illustrate health data and potential outcomes, as defined by meaningful use requirements. The indicators are all customizable, with green, yellow, and red bars that notify the user of how close they are to achieving compliance in each area. Among the thresholds that facilities can select to monitor are (1) demographic collection on 50% of all unique patients with individual monitoring on patient preferred language, gender, race, ethnicity, and date of birth; (2) recording of vital signs on 50% of all unique patients with individual monitoring on patients between the ages of 2-20 for height, weight, blood pressure, and body mass index (BMI); (3) growth chart plotting for patients between the ages of 2-20 for both height and weight against national statistics; (4) lastly, recording of smoking status on 50% of all unique patients ages 13 and above.

Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU; Portland, USA) has been using Impax Business Intelligence to enhance efficiency and to improve the patient experience and benchmark data. The system delivers measures that highlight opportunities to save costs, and is designed to help managers proactively improve data quality and data integrity over time. OHSU is now among the first healthcare systems in the United States to implement the MU dashboard for meeting regulatory criteria and MU standards.

“Working with Agfa HealthCare we’ve been able to gather and organize data into a format that we can actually use and learn from,” Erwin Schwarz, director of imaging services, OHSU. “In the midst of many new regulatory demands including meaningful use criteria, as well as at a time when we’re facing cuts in radiology departments, using an analytical tool such as Impax Business Intelligence has allowed us to optimize clinical, business and administrative data and hone in on where we need to improve. We can see what we are doing well, benchmark our data against other institutions, and achieve a higher level of patient and referring physician satisfaction.”

Impax Business Intelligence is part of Agfa HealthCare’s RIS and picture archiving and communication system (PACS) product, and provides historic, current, and predictive views of radiology operations in the form of real-time dashboards, management reports, and ad-hoc queries against an Impax data warehouse in a single browser window. The system enables healthcare providers to compile, organize, and manage clinical, quality, financial, and administrative data. It can also enhance efficiency and competitiveness, as well as allow administrators to study the workflow in order to achieve greater patient and physician satisfaction. For example, the system can be used to decrease patient wait times by targeting in on where the workflow is inhibiting the patient flow. Moreover, facilities can monitor physician ordering to identify trends and aid in marketing efforts to the referring base.

“In developing Impax Business Intelligence, we had customer input before we built the product,” said Mr. Reznik. “We’re pleased to be able to continue working with OHSU in further developing the solution with the capability of combining both the PACS and RIS data together, giving a true patient image of what occurred from end-to-end and allowing healthcare professionals to provide more efficient care and meet the ever increasing regulatory demands.”

Related Links:
Agfa HealthCare
Oregon Health & Science University