Enhancing Radiology Workflows with eForm Technology

Morris Hospital is located in Morris, IL, the county seat of Grundy County in the SW Chicago Metropolitan area. Founded in 1907, Morris Hospital is a long-time client of Interlace Health, having used our solutions for Forms on Demand and Forms Workflow Automation. Recently, Morris expanded their relationship with Interlace Health to support Informed Consenting and non-patient facing forms in their Imaging Services department.  

The need for digital forms within the Imaging Services department created an opportunity for Interlace and Morris to partner on a form conversion from paper to digital format. Morris has been using worksheets, managed by the Imaging Technicians to catalog data for imaging tests completed for each patient. The process was quite cumbersome. For example, if a patient required a CT, XRAY, and MRI, then three different worksheets would be required to be completed. These would then need to be scanned into the patient’s record along with the appropriate informed consent documents once signed by the patient. Additionally, the informed consent would need to be manually scanned and archived to the three separate orders within Morris’s PACS solution. 

Each time a paper form is used, there is a cost associated with the printing, scanning, and shredding of the paper document, along with the labor costs incurred at each of these steps. In addition to the monetary costs, paper forms can be misplaced or form completion can be delayed due to the need to be scanned and entered into the EHR. Compliance issues arise when the appropriate documentation is not in the EHR at the time of the tests. 

Getting Down to ONE worksheet for ALL tests in Radiology

The Interlace Health implementation team studied the workflow with the Morris team and determined that not only could the process be digitized for these worksheets, but that a single worksheet could be used for all the tests a patient might have. Rather than hand-write notes in the columns of the paper form, the Interlace form includes fields where text can be input for each procedure. Once the worksheet is completed all the data needed to catalog these tests are automatically entered into the PACS system for compliance and billing.  

As a result of the work done by Morris and Interlace, it is now possible for a Morris clinician or imaging tech to select a procedure and the provider from a lookup table. The consent form is prepped for the provider ahead of the procedure. The patient and doctor do not need to sign the consent at the same time; however, it must be signed by both parties prior to the procedure taking place. Once signed by both the patient and the provider, it is digitally archived either into the AGFA Healthcare PACS system, the Meditech Expanse EHR, or in both systems.  

From a consenting perspective, Interlace Health was able to replace a great number of number of different consents with a database-driven set of forms in support of all the Imaging testing done at the hospital. By reducing the number of consents, Morris Hospital is better able to manage updates for each of these consents in one location.

From the patient’s perspective, the consenting process has improved as well, instead of ruffling through a clipboard while the provider explains the contents of the consent to the patient, they now can walk through the document, which can include supporting images using a tablet. The patient signs the consent much like they would do any other document in 2024—digitally.  

With this solution being so well-recieved at Morris Hospital,  Interlace Health has recreated this workflow in our demonstration environment. If you are interested in a demonstration of Informed Consenting within Imaging Testing Services as well as Worksheets, we’d be happy to share how we can help streamline this important workflow for your organization. Contact us to schedule your personalized demo.

 

About the Author:

Eric Ballard, is a Senior Implementation Consultant, Interoperability Lead, at Interlace Health. He is a senior-level HIT professional with an exceptional career record of successfully providing discovery, workflow analysis, and solution design for healthcare systems.

He has a proven track record of implementing effective operational strategies, delivering innovative solutions, and facilitating customer success to ensure profitability and customer satisfaction. Eric has developed and designed technical solution offerings, cultivated, and built strong relationships; and performed healthcare IT system implementations and integrations with a variety of EMRs/EHRs.

Eric provides expertise in customizing healthcare IT solutions and provides consultative assistance to C-Level and key IT leaders to identify the best strategy to solve problems.  His strengths span discovery and solution architecture, account management, technical assessments, requirements/needs analysis, client relations and interoperability. Find Eric on LinkedIn.

 

 

 

Download eBook: How Healthcare Teams Can Leverage Digitized Forms