Elkhart General produces fast, accurate reports while reducing costs and easing compliance.
Company profile
Founded in 1909, Elkhart General Hospital is a nonprofit hospital, part of Beacon Health System, located in Northern Indiana. The full‑service, 350-bed hospital serves more than 19,000 patients a month. The Elkhart medical staff is comprised of 330 physicians representing 30 medical specialties and more than 2,000 employees serving in nursing, technical, administrative, and support capacities. Elkhart’s radiologists perform approximately 125,000 reads annually. A long-time Nuance customer, Elkhart implemented PowerScribe® 360 Reporting to streamline its reporting process, while also making significant gains in compliance and reducing costs.
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Dr. Samir Patel
Director of Radiology
Radiology Inc’s Value Management Program, Elkhart General Hospital board member
Challenge
- Inconsistencies with reporting
- Excessive costs and waste
- Increase in regulatory requirements
Solution
- Enhance use of the PowerScribe 360 reporting and communication platform
- Leverage PowerScribe 360’s unique capabilities to further organizational and national healthcare goals
Results
- Reduced turnaround times from 3-4 hours to less than 15 minutes
- Achieved cost savings greater than $100,000 per year with self-edit
- Eliminated 1,100 hours in transcription time per year
- Simplified PQRS reporting to avoid negative payment adjustments
Background
Dr. Patel’s independent radiology practice group contracts with Elkhart, and implemented PowerScribe 360 Reporting back in 2012, when hospitals began facing greater regulations for reimbursement. Because of the new requirements, the need for a structured reporting system became a vital necessity.
“Up until this point there was a greater reliance on radiologists to remember to include certain elements in reporting, which often resulted in inconsistencies,” said Dr. Patel. “It was important that we implement a structured reporting system so that in the future, data mining for outcomes would be possible.”
The platform’s checklist-driven reporting template and enhanced speech recognition technology was easy to use, had a low learning curve, and was adopted by the hospital’s physicians right away.