FISHER-TITUS REAPS REWARDS OF DOCUMENT IMAGING WITH VANGUARD'S IMS/21

Fisher-Titus Medical Center of Norwalk, Ohio is a 112 bed community hospital situated in rural north central Ohio.  Because FTMC is a small facility, they must use new technology to help provide better service and enhance patient care.

Start with the Basics

The original intent for document imaging was to streamline the patient admission process, but its use was rapidly expanded to image-enable the Materials Handling and Accounts Payable processing.  Accounts Payable at Fisher-Titus was a straightforward application and an early success would encourage use of IMS/21.  In October of 2001, Fisher-Titus began scanning packing slips, invoices, purchase order records and archiving reports such as check registers, general ledger journals and monthly accounting reports.  Soon after, they began scanning cancelled checks.

Having the entire purchasing process image enabled dramatically streamlined the Accounts Payable workflow.  Invoices, along with supporting documentation, are available online not only for the AP staff but also for department managers.  Accounting personnel are able to drill down to their journal batches and to the voucher images using their MedSeries4 screens. Fisher-Titus radically reduced the need for copying paper documents and eliminated delays in retrieving old records.  Manual filing and storage requirements were greatly reduced and AP paper records are now being destroyed on a rolling four-month basis.

AP checks are printed with a barcode representing the check number.  When checks are received from the bank, they are scanned in a batch and IMS/21 indexes them automatically by check number.  This allows the entire paper trail to be viewed on a variety of screens in the health information system (Siemens’ MedSeries4) from the creation of the purchase order to the receipt of the cancelled check.

Printed reports as well as scanned images

Because IMS/21 can also import and electronically distribute computer-generated reports automatically, Fisher-Titus no longer prints many of its reports.  Materials Management and Accounting reports are automatically imported directly from MedSeries4 where IMS/21 recognizes breaks in the data and indexes the reports by the appropriate key.  For example, P.O. number, accounting period, check number, etc.

“Everyone loves Imaging….. We could never go back…”

The exchange of paper between the receiving dock and Accounts Payable has been entirely eliminated.  The AP clerks cannot imagine life without the IMS/21 imaging system.  It has eliminated their filing workload and allows them immediate access to images to answer inquiries from vendors and hospital managers.  Deb Cherry, Accounts Payable Supervisor, says, “Everyone loves imaging.  We could never go back!   We can respond to vendors’ queries instantly, look up cancelled checks and other documents without going to a file drawer or, in some cases, even another building”.

Fisher-Titus has over twenty desk top scanners in twelve departments including Admitting, Physical Therapy, Financial Counseling, HR/Payroll, Medical Records, Corporate Compliance, ER, Central Scheduling and Billing in addition to AP, MDC and Accounting.

When patients are registered, the system creates a “spoolfile” (report) version of the facesheet that is imported directly into IMS/21, along with scanned images of consent forms, physician orders and insurance cards.  These documents are then instantly available across the medical center.  Insurance cards are scanned and archived once and are checked on each visit but not re-scanned.  Having the insurance cards available has helped the billing office to verify insurance information and to ensure that the correct insurance plan has been entered on the system.


High speed (25ppm), small footprint Fujitsu
scanners allow effective scanning from any workstation.

The corporate compliance process has been streamlined now that the compliance specialist can view facesheets, orders and consent forms simultaneously on her monitor.  As she monitors cases and makes revisions, she scans the revised documents at her desk thereby eliminating faxing, copying and trying to coordinate changes with the Admitting department.  

 

“Document imaging is the best thing that has happened in this department in years”

Fisher-Titus provides computer support for a second hospital and also uses IMS/21 to manage their imaging needs in Admitting, ER, Medical Records and Radiology.  According to Linda Badami, Director of Radiology at Magruder Hospital, “Document imaging is the best thing that has happened in this department in years.  We have radiology reports at a click, it has eliminated all our micro-fiche, we have access to consent forms and insurance cards and it saves us hours and hours of work.  It has made life easier for everyone in this department”.

 All documents are captured on optical disks for backup purposes and are concurrently stored on large (1/2 Terabyte) disks using an IMS/21 feature called Hypercache, which allows images to be stored on faster, less expensive network storage devices.  Although Fisher Titus could have used any network storage device they elected to use LaCie disk units, paying under $1,000 per ½ terabyte.  As documents are archived in IMS/21 they are also written to Hypecache then synchronized to a second unit for backup.  This has become a tremendous tool for Fisher-Titus.  It dramatically reduces the movement of platters in the optical jukebox and eliminates the need to manually load platters because users now reference old documents from the Hypercache (LaCie disks).  With the IMS/21 automatic backup and storage to optical disk, Hypercache including a second mirrored LaCie Disk the system is reliable, secure, fast and requires minimal operational support.


Large capacity LaCie network drives provide imaging
storage for under $1,000 per ½ Terabyte.

Document imaging is pervasive throughout the medical center but the challenge according to Dave Winans is the need to review processes over as many departments as possible to ensure that we are utilizing IMS/21 to its greatest benefit. 

Vanguard Systems, Inc. 100 Granite Drive, Suite 205, Media, PA 19063 (800) 445-1418