The Providence Center: Medical Records Go Electronic
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- DocuWare
- Client Search
- EDocs
Tech Stack
- Electronic Document Repository
- Database Management
- Web Accessibility
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Customer Satisfaction
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
- Functional Applications - Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP)
Applicable Industries
- Healthcare & Hospitals
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Human Resources
Use Cases
- Regulatory Compliance Monitoring
- Remote Patient Monitoring
Services
- Data Science Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
The Providence Center is a mental health and substance use treatment center that serves adults and children throughout Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts who are affected by psychiatric illnesses, emotional problems, and addictions. The Center provides treatment and support services within a community setting at four treatment sites, one school, and 11 residential locations. The Providence Center serves over 11,000 clients a year and maintains a clinical medical record for each one. The records vary in size from a few sheets to over nine inches of paper. Each record is standardized into eight main sections: administrative information, assessments, medical information, medication, progress notes, releases, treatment plans, and miscellaneous.
The Challenge
The Providence Center, a mental health and substance use treatment center, was struggling with the limitations of paper-based medical records. These records were only accessible from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, and needed to be requested in advance of appointments. This was a hindrance to providing quality care to clients, especially in emergency situations. The Center had already eliminated most of its handwritten forms and had an electronic forms creation system in place, but once the forms were completed, they were printed and stored in a paper medical record. The Center needed a solution that would allow for 24/7 access to clinical records, improve the quality of records by reducing human error, and meet the privacy requirements of HIPAA.
The Solution
The Providence Center implemented DocuWare, an electronic document repository, as part of its information management system. This allowed all documentation, whether originating as paper or electronic, to be made available in electronic format. A majority of E-Docs forms were brought into DocuWare already indexed and ready to be stored. In cases where a computer was not available, handwritten forms could still be used and were manually indexed with the assistance of barcodes and database lookups to autopopulate key index values. DocuWare’s open architecture and Software Developer Kit allowed The Providence Center’s programmers to smoothly integrate DocuWare with existing off-the-shelf and custom software to meet their unique needs. The Providence Center implemented DocuWare on a point-forward basis, meaning new client records would be completely electronic, and any forms or information added to existing client records would be done electronically and stored in DocuWare.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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