Electronic records becoming
Don't expect to see paper charts when you visit a New Castle physician. By the end of this year, Henry County Hospital and its offices will be on a digital system.

Already, two-thirds of the hospital's offices use electronic records and images instead of the traditional paper.

And on March 7, HCH went live with electronic documents created from scanning all paper documents into its computer system.

Mike Spencer, the hospital's chief information officer, said those changes have made HCH safer and more efficient.

Charts and prescriptions once written in the notorious doctor's chicken-scratch handwriting are now easy to read on computer screens. He said that helps eliminate errors from misreading someone's writing.

The digital system also makes information like medicine allergies or lab results easily accessible. Spencer said doctors can get image results like X-rays more quickly.

And when patients visit a New Castle office, their information is entered into a system that doctors can access at another HCH office or even at home.

Dr. Wylie McGlothlin, chief medical information officer at HCH, is also a physician at New Castle Family Physicians. In the past, he said, if one of his patients went to the hospital the week before, it could take an hour to have the records faxed to his office.

"Now, it's literally a click of a button in the exam room and it's right on the screen," he said. "It makes that information much, much more accessible to the physician."

Shift Took

Long Process

The process of shifting from paper to computers hasn't been short. The first digital system was a product called NexGen, Spencer said, used in 1999 at New Castle Family Physicians for office records.

Then in 2002, the hospital signed a contract to use the Soarian clinical system for in-patient records. Spencer said the two systems are parallel and easily communicate with each other.

All images, like X-rays and MRIs, went digital in 2005 with a system called PACS, or Picture Archiving and Communication System.

Spencer said the most significant development came a year and a half ago, when the hospital started using a system to help make sure the right patient is getting the right medicine.

Scanning the paper documents into the computer system on March 7 helped move HCH toward its goal of becoming a "paper-light" organization.

Aimee Jackson, director of medical records, said some patients had charts that took up volumes of paper. Now those same records are available on a screen.

Blake Dye, hospital president and CEO, said HCH jumped into the digital world sooner than some hospitals its size. It came at a "huge" cost, he said - about $17 to $20 million over a 20-year period.

But on top of making the hospital safer, he said it was also the direction the industry was moving. The federal government is encouraging hospitals to go digital, he said. And HCH has to find ways to make its providers more efficient.

"School's still out on whether that's the case today," he said. "I think in three to five years, it will be the case."

In some ways, the change has made life easier for nurses and doctors. Patty Yergin, Soarian clinicals project manager, said the system gives nurses reassurance for the patient's safety.

The easy access to information is also helpful to doctors, McGlothlin said. Digital records alert doctors to everything from allergies to drug-to-drug interaction.

"On paper, you''re relying on the physician to remember everything," he said. "Human beings aren't that perfect."

But some aspects of the digital system are slow and tedious, McGlothlin said. And for more seasoned doctors, Dye said, adjusting to the digital world has been tough.

The transition for the next few years could be difficult, he said. Already, though, new doctors right out of school are trained in using digital records.