Baptist Health: Electronic Health Records System

Baptist Health engaged Accenture to help it achieve high performance through creating a single, reliable and integrated electronic health records system for the entire organization, which it achieved a month earlier than projected.

Baptist Health is a non-profit, three-hospital system in Montgomery, Alabama. Its mission is to promote and improve the physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of the people and communities it serves through the delivery of quality health care services provided within a framework of fiscal responsibility.

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In 1998, Baptist Medical Center (now Baptist Medical Center South) acquired four hospitals, two of which were eventually sold—with Baptist Medical Center East and Prattville Baptist Hospital remaining.

As the three Baptist Health facilities had workable but incompatible electronic health records systems, the decision was made to move as quickly as possible to a solution that would integrate all three facilities. The two acquired hospitals both performed a quick installation of a minimally functional clinical information system (CIS). Although the plan was to add functionality and gradual customizations to create an integrated enterprise system that would eventually be installed in all three facilities, the two hospitals actually took a step backwards towards more manual processes, poorer access to relevant data and less timely information.

Baptist Health engaged Accenture to assess the situation and propose remedies to achieve a constructive collaboration between Baptist Health, the applications provider and the outsourcing vendor. The organization also asked Accenture to collaborate in the redesign of the Clinical Information System, its implementation and the renegotiation of the clinical system vendor's contract.

As a first step, Accenture project managers interviewed hospital employees to determine the shortcomings of the existing CIS and possible remedies.

Next, the team conducted Rapid Design sessions which resulted in the Accenture-led team's proposal to consolidate two different legacy operating models into one enterprise model that would promote high performance. Working closely with Baptist Health, Accenture implemented the redesigned CIS and the Accenture/Baptist Health team conducted a major upgrade to the software, customizing the existing solutions to function throughout the enterprise. Today, all clinicians who add and review patient data—from nurses and admitting personnel to radiologists, lab technicians, social workers and, of course, physicians—make use of the new Clinical Information System.

With Accenture's help, Baptist Health has achieved its main objective—the creation of a single, reliable and integrated electronic health records system for the entire organization.

In fact, the solution was able to go live a month earlier than projected in the original plan. Today, as a patient moves from one facility to another within the organization, the information flows with the patient. The CIS has increased the productivity of clinicians, and enhanced the workflow of each clinical department. In addition, users have found the new system intuitive to use, and are already making suggestions to improve its functionality.

Baptist Health believes that on-the-spot availability of current, comprehensive patient medical information is improving patient care and enhancing patient safety. In addition, physicians save time by accessing patient data wirelessly as they make their rounds. In short, Accenture helped Baptist Health dramatically improve its productivity through the design and implementation of a new clinical information system that marks not only a milestone in the client's adoption of electronic health records solutions, but a significant step on the organization's path to high performance.

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