Connectivity and Error Reduction Produces Big ROI

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Challenge

WakeMed Health had previously been using a connectivity application that was being sunset by the vendor, along with the support for the application. Results for tests ordered by community physicians needed to be held and only released when the entire order from the physician was complete. Additionally, the manual processes involved in the previous workflow required staff resources that were not scalable for the WakeMed Health team. They needed automations that could accommodate the custom needs of their workflow, without requiring the need to add additional staff for EHR integration and collaboration.

“Depending on the tests or combination of tests, the time hold method being used was not necessarily the best workflow for our team moving forward. Another big reason for choosing ELLKAY was we have limited staffing. ELLKAY can put an interface in very quickly,” said Kristine Fanning, Manager of Ambulatory and Community Lab Services, WakeMed Health and Hospitals.

Working with ELLKAY

ELLKAY’s lab team was able to synchronize a suite of ELLKAY lab solutions to answer the custom automation needs of WakeMed Health. This led to increased efficiencies in staff workflow, despite the implementation taking place during the pandemic with a heightened number of samples requested. WakeMed Health was able to achieve massive program growth without adding to processing staff workflows.

“We really had a great experience with ELLKAY during the whole implementation process. We had a team of people that really worked to understand our business practices and our goals along the way.”

The ELLKAY team worked with the WakeMed Health team and handled much of the conversations with the EHR to ensure integrations took place efficiently and without delays. The team built custom functionalities needed for the WakeMed Health workflow and created efficiencies, alleviating the need to hire additional staff. ELLKAY’s existing connection and relationships with the EHR benefitted WakeMed Health in driving efficiencies during the interfacing process with the EHR and reduced costs for converting the interfaces. WakeMed Health did not need to repurchase any EHR interfaces.

“During COVID we were experiencing turnover, as well as the EHR. ELLKAY was able to movethe process along using their contacts at the EHR.”

Results

"We wanted to take ourselves out of the picture completely with outsourced genetic testing. Having the ELLKAY connection allows a faster turnaround time as the order comes directly from the EHR and goes directly to their laboratory of choice. We were able to set up an automatic process based on tests, not on insurance, that certain genetic tests generate a requisition for the laboratory of choice and there's no confusion moving forward."

Additionally, the ELLKAY solutions team engineered an option to "break the hold" and release critical holds. Physicians wanted to receive their patient's lab results all at once when the entire order is complete. The ELLKAY automation allows all results to be sent to the ordering practice once the order is complete without implementing any time-based automatic holds. Conversely, the system will send results immediately, bypassing the hold when an individual test is requested to be sent stat, or if a critical result is received. While critical results trigger a phone call to the ordering physician, the information is also immediately available in the EHR ready to be reviewed and/or forwarded to the patient via a patient portal if necessary.

Internal staff were initially hesitant to embrace a new system, but the engagement increased greatly once the benefits were understood.

"The benefit is two-fold. The first is the ROI, saving four minutes in the requisition process at accessioning, which allows us to maintain current FTE while increasing sample intake. The second was where we got the most engagement. The vast reduction and near elimination of patient data entry errors. Every time a staff member has to manually enter data, it is fraught with the possibility of a data entry error. Working with ELLKAY allowed us to take that possibility out."

ELLKAY automatically matches up the external patient medical record number (MRN) from the practice to the WakeMed Health MRN, which was a big enhancement for continuity of care in the community. Now all lab results exist in their EHR, regardless of the ordering physician.

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