Avera St.  Luke’s converts to electronic medical record system

Patients at Avera St. Luke’s and residents at Avera Mother Joseph and Eureka Health Care Center may notice their nurses spending a little more time at their bedside on a computer, documenting their medical information directly into an electronic medical record (EMR) system.

This technological advance means enhanced care for patients, because health care professionals can now instantly go online to see a patient’s medical record, not only from Avera St. Luke’s Hospital but from many other Avera facilities. Physicians have complete records at their fingertips. Computers are everyday tools that nurses, doctors and other staff are using more since Avera St. Luke’s Hospital and Long-Term Care divisions converted to an electronic medical record.

“For the primary care physicians, they can truly track the care of their patient throughout the continuum of care,” said Julie Kusler, director of Information Technology at Avera St. Luke’s. “Patients aren’t having to answer as many repeat questions from the various facilities. This also reduces the potential for errors.”

For example, a patient seen in Selby who needs care at Avera St. Luke’s Emergency Department, is transferred to Avera  Heart Hospital , returns to Avera St. Luke’s for follow-up therapy, then goes back to their family physician in Selby… that patient’s medical record is available immediately to all providers and clinicians treating the patient at each phase of recovery. For a long-term care resident who needs a test at the hospital, results are readily available to staff back at their home facility.

Kusler points to these benefits of an electronic medical record:

• Patient information is available to multiple physicians and clinicians, in many locations at the same time. Accurate information about a patient’s condition is accessible to doctors in their clinic, at the patient’s bedside or even in an operating room.
• Up-to-the-minute health care information (test results and reports) is available in real time. Electronic processing of information allows for a more “readable” record, which can assist in improved patient safety. Potential for errors is reduced. 
• Electronic processing of health information allows for checking orders against clinical alerts to avoid medication errors.
• Knowledge bases and online clinical references are easier to use.

Avera St. Luke’s conversion consisted primarily of upgrading the existing Health Information System (HIS) to a newer version known as Client Server. “The Client Server version gives us a better mechanism for taking the next steps of progressing towards a totally electronic, and eventually paperless medical record,” Kusler said. “Equally important was our standardization process, which allows us to pull together all the Avera health information systems into a system-wide electronic medical record." 

Some clinics in Avera St. Luke’s region are in the process of converting their records to integrate directly with the hospital’s system. The first two Avera St.  Luke’s clinics started to use the scheduling and billing portion of this system on Oct. 1. All other Avera clinics, as well as some independent clinics, will join in this system in the following months.