As healthcare organizations continue to consolidate, one of the big challenges they face is how to combine the data from multiple systems. One of the most important types of data is patient medication history. No one wants to check multiple systems for medication reconciliation, and merging that information into one system is a real challenge. Yet doing so in a reliable way is essential to ensure proper continuity of care for patients and avoid adverse drug events.
This is the problem Dr. Robert Lackey, Chief Medical Information Officer at WellSpan Health, faced after acquisitions left the health system with three different EHRs. At the recent HIMSS conference, we sat down with Dr. Lackey to learn more about this problem and what he and his team at WellSpan Health did to consolidate medication history data from multiple EHRs into one instance of Epic.
In the interview below, Dr. Lackey shares the various options they considered to address the problem and why they chose to use the AI-powered DrFirst SmartProcessor solution to ensure their legacy EHR medication data was complete, clean and functional in the new EHR. Otherwise, clinicians would need to manually enter data and make corrections every time a patient presented at a WellSpan facility. The key result is that the AI solution improved the quality of the data, avoided the need for time-consuming and error-prone data entry, and helped streamline the medication reconciliation process.
Dr. Lackey shared that chart conversion time was cut by about half, which means doctors weren’t left waiting for a chart conversion to be complete before they saw the patient. Dr. Lackey also noted that this project was completed at 60% less than the budgeted amount. This was thanks to both the DrFirst AI solution and some workforce benefits related to remote work.
If you want to learn more about the benefits of AI in consolidating medication history data, you’ll enjoy this interview with Dr. Lackey from WellSpan Health.
Learn more about DrFirst: https://drfirst.com/
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