Spectrum Health Utilizes Kofax Solution to Automate and Streamline Medical Records Processing
Kofax Intelligent Capture & Exchange Enables One of Nation’s Top Health Care Systems to Process More Than 10.5 Million Inpatient Records Annually
Spectrum Health is a not-for-profit health system offering a full continuum of care through seven hospitals, more than 140 service sites and a 560,000-member health plan. Based in West Michigan, the system handles more than 60,000 inpatients, nearly 200,000 emergency room patient visits, 143,000 urgent care visits and 34,000 outpatient surgeries annually.
One of the nation’s top integrated health care delivery systems, Spectrum Health has 14,000 employees, 1,500 medical staff members and 2,000 volunteers, and provided nearly $100 million in total community benefit during its 2007 fiscal year. The system is known for its comprehensive prevention, diagnosis, treatment and recovery services covering virtually every area of medicine. Additionally, its nationally recognized health plan, Priority Health, serves more than 560,000 members throughout Michigan.
Since forming in 1997, Spectrum Health has earned nearly 70 national awards for its clinical programs, community service and operations. This includes being named one of the nation’s “Top 100 Integrated Healthcare Networks” six times in the past 10 years for excellence in continuum of care and integrative facilities and services.
The Challenge
Spectrum Health wanted a solution to automate and streamline its medical records processing and document classification for its inpatient population, which comprises anyone admitted to a hospital or health care facility for medical, surgical or obstetrical care for a 24-hour period or longer. The inpatient records system required heavy paper-based processing, complex form identification and advanced optical character recognition (OCR) for a multitude of document formats.
Each year, Spectrum Health serves more than 60,000 inpatients making it one of West Michigan’s largest care providers. The combination of paper and electronic records that was in place made it difficult for physicians and staff to locate, retrieve, and update inpatient records efficiently.
Spectrum Health’s inpatient charts could be found in 1,400 different formats, all of which needed to be re-classified down to 70 consistent document types for efficient processing. To make matters more complex, 10 percent of the forms did not feature bar codes, requiring advanced OCR to identify the document types before classifying them appropriately.
"We needed a way to get inpatient record documents classified efficiently and organized so physicians could find and access them easily, even from remote locations," said Adam Gee, project manager for Spectrum Health. "At the same time, it was critical that scanned documents were of the highest quality possible, so that record accuracy and security would be compliant with government standards and, above all, for protected patient health information."
The Solution
Spectrum Health turned to its capture and content management partner BRT to review several capture solutions, including the re-customization of its own in-place system. The decision was made to implement a Kofax Intelligent Capture & Exchange solution, the centerpiece of Kofax’s strategy to help organizations streamline business processes.
"Kofax is the only technology on the market today that could adequately address our requirements," said Doug Ford, sales manager for BRT. "The open architecture of the Kofax solution offered a seamless integration with Spectrum Health’s current system."
To meet its needs, Spectrum Health employed:
- Kofax Capture, the world’s leading information capture platform, which automates data capture from scanned paper or imported documents.
- Kofax Transformation Modules (KTM), which intelligently automates the classification, sorting and separation of paper and electronic documents, then extracts and validates the information they contain.
BRT successfully planned and delivered the Kofax solution to Spectrum Health on time and under budget. From start to finish, the solution was completed in a
90-day delivery window. As part of the implementation, Spectrum Health introduced the Kofax solution to the health information management (HIM) staff through several training rotations. While they had minimal experience with document capture, the HIM team embraced the new platform and its ease-of-use and functionality.
"Kofax and BRT offered us a great solution for what was becoming a records processing headache for HIM Leadership and staff," said Gee. "As a result, we now have the capability to automate and process millions of inpatient records in multiple formats from many source locations with speed, accuracy and precision. And it’s a solution that is easy for HIM staff to learn, understand and use."
The Results
Since implementing the Kofax solution, Spectrum Health has already seen significant improvements in document classification accuracy, efficiency and productivity within its HIM document imaging system. Previously, Spectrum Health had been able to automate and process only about 187,000 documents, which represented a fraction of what was needed without significant manual intervention. With the Kofax solution in place, the system now processes 10.5 million documents annually. This has been accomplished without adding HIM personnel, which was a key requirement for Spectrum Health.
"We’ve been able to make our clinicians’ lives easier, and that permits them to focus more on doing what they do best – taking care of patients," said Gee. "Instead of having to walk or drive to get paper-based inpatient files, we now have access to everything electronically and immediately. Physicians now have the option to obtain and electronically sign scanned documents directly from their computer."
Ford added that Spectrum Health and BRT are planning further implementation of the Kofax solution into clinics and facilities throughout Western Michigan.
Contact Us