Customer

Success Story

Efficient and Reliable Report Delivery on any MEDITECH Platform

Hospital

  • Asheboro, NC
  • 145 beds
  • MEDITECH 6.0

Challenges

  • Lack of communication in MEDITECH environment
  • Inefficient report delivery
  • Managing too many third-party vendors

Results

  • Core vendor strategy using MEDITECH and Forward Advantage
  • Forward Advantage integrates seamlessly with MEDITECH
  • Information delivery is streamlined and manual processes reduced

Randolph Hospital, in Asheboro, NC, is a 145-bed community hospital serving the population of Randolph County. The hospital has been a MEDITECH customer since 1988, beginning on the MAGIC platform and ultimately transitioning to 6.0 with Forward Advantage’s assistance. Randolph Hospital has been a Forward Advantage customer since 2002, integrating Communication Director with MEDITECH’s EHR for automated clinical report delivery and information exchange. The hospital’s leadership team and staff were extremely pleased with Forward Advantage’s migration and Communication Director’s compatibility with their updated platform. The direct integration with MEDITECH provides efficient data delivery at Randolph Hospital without any third-party tools – two key objectives.

A History of Data Exchange with Forward Advantage

Forward Advantage has been a MEDITECH preferred partner and integrator for more than 20 years, which was a key selling point for Randolph Hospital. “MEDITECH has done its due diligence in developing software that allows clinicians to document and capture the patient information they need to facilitate care within an organization; however, what it’s lacking is the communication piece,” says Erica Hoglen, clinical systems analyst at Randolph. “Forward Advantage has bridged that gap. They have the experience and understanding necessary to integrate with the MEDITECH HCIS so that information delivery is streamlined and does not require additional third-party tools.”

Product Info

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Supporting Solutions

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Communication Director

Communication Director is used for reports distribution by nearly every department at Randolph and has eliminated courier services for 90 percent of its physicians. SmartRoute technology automates faxing upon a report’s signature for six of Randolph’s departments using rules to intelligently determine recipient and delivery preference. While on MAGIC, departments that were not set up with a SmartRoute relied on MEDITECH’s Demand Fax application for on-demand faxing. Demand Fax is not available with the 6.0 platform that Randolph Hospital is currently on, so this functionality was replaced with Communication Director’s Desktop Fax.

Communication Director not only provides more efficient and reliable report delivery at Randolph, but it has helped improve the hospital’s physician relationships. “Communication Director‘s built-in auditing has been an enormous benefit for us, because we can look at the system to show that a report was successfully delivered,” says Hoglen. “It has really improved our accountability with our physician base.”

Improvements with Desktop Fax

The transition from MEDITECH’s MAGIC-based Demand Fax to Forward Advantage’s Desktop Fax was well-received by staff and required minimal re-training. “The two systems are similar enough that our end users didn’t require much training,” says Hoglen. “They actually like Desktop Fax much better. The ability to create our own address book for physicians who are not built into Communication Director has been a tremendous benefit. While on MAGIC and Demand Fax, we couldn’t fax to physicians who were not in the provider dictionary. With Desktop Fax, we can create a local address book for physicians we may only fax to once. It’s a huge benefit to not be limited to what’s in MEDITECH’s provider dictionary.”

Advice for Other Hospitals

When asked what advice she would offer other hospitals in a similar situation, Hoglen recommends maintaining a core vendor strategy for technology initiatives. “We’ve chosen to use Forward Advantage time after time. Using a core vendor strategy for our main HCIS and third-party communication systems has been an enormous benefit for us. Everyone should consider a core vendor strategy for each of their needs before selecting multiple systems to try and do the same thing.”

Conclusion

Forward Advantage was pleased with the results of Randolph’s MEDITECH 6.0 migration and looks forward to helping the hospital with future initiatives. “Our relationship with Randolph is an excellent example of how productive a vendor-client relationship can be,” says Kevin Frazier, manager of client services for Forward Advantage. “Our primary goal is to create a consistent customer experience by instilling trust with reliable products and services.”

About Forward Advantage

Since 1993, Forward Advantage has provided solid solutions that integrate seamlessly with healthcare information systems; offering products developed in collaboration with MEDITECH for report distribution, HIE products and services, data migration, and identity management. Forward Advantage has over 1,200 installations worldwide and is in the leading position to provide innovative and cost-effective solutions for MEDITECH customers. More information on Forward Advantage’s products and services can be found at www.forwardadvantage.com.

About Randolph Hospital

Since 1932, Randolph Hospital has been fortunate to employ dedicated and loyal personnel committed to providing quality healthcare and promoting health and wellness in our community. Randolph Hospital touches nearly every family in Randolph County in some way, through Outpatient services, maternity care, inpatient hospitalization, education classes and screenings, emergency department visits, home health care and much more. More information can be found at www.randolphhospital.org.