RUNNER UP:
Saint Luke's Health System
Kansas City, MO

Teamwork and Technology
This year's recognition has been 7 years in the making at Saint Luke's Health System in Kansas City, MO; since 2001, the HIM department has been working to unite 11 segregated medical records departments into a single, cohesive group under the leadership of senior corporate director of HIM and decision support, Randy House, MBA. The transition continued this year, as computer applications at two facilities were updated and integrated into the health system. Only two of the 11 departments have yet to be upgraded.    

 "Bringing on new facilities into the organization and onto the computer system, we were able to really work as a team and figure out why we do certain things," said Sharon Korzdorfer, MPA, RHIT, HIM director.

Bringing all 11 facilities together, with some separated by as little as 5 minutes or as much as an hour and a half drive, not only helps to centralize the system but also encourages each hospital to re-evaluate its documentation and management practices.

"Without that mandate of moving from one system to another, [each facility] would have probably continued doing their same process. We wouldn't have questioned our own," Korzdorfer noted. "So it really made us move forward."

Re-evaluation is paying off, as Saint Luke's has made vast improvements, particularly to its relations with medical personnel. Beginning in late 2004, HIM managers set out to improve deficiencies in physician reporting. They noted that 60 percent of the deficiencies came from residents, so managers worked with educational staff members at the teaching hospitals to ensure that residents received proper instruction for completing charts. Residents who were continuous offenders would not receive credit for that semester of residency. "We really put some teeth into the policies," Korzdorfer said.

The initial delinquency rate was more than 40 percent. Now, it's down to 6.65 percent.

Korzdorfer said the improvement she is most proud of, however, is the success of the health system's Physician Portal, which provides a convenient, centralized location where physicians can access all applications. "They don't have to wait for us to tell them [a record is] delinquent," Korzdorfer explained. "They can actually complete that signature or dictation while the patient's in-house, even prior to discharge or after discharge."

Korzdorfer attributes Saint Luke's success to the HIM team's strong connections with the IT department. While HIM departments at other facilities often struggle to have a say in IT decision-making, Saint Luke's prides itself on cooperation; the HIM team includes functional analysts that work with IT, while a project manager ensures that systems are up-to-date and user-friendly.

Technology also helps the 199-member team stay in constant communication. Weekly e-mails called "Friday Update" keep staffers informed about individual facility changes as well as system-wide news. Online communication boards keep remote MTs and coders in the know, while "mid-week huddles," which go out on Wednesdays via e-mail, give employees an idea of where they are with accounts receivable and where they need to be by that Friday.

As Saint Luke's transitions into the digital age, HIM's role in IT is even more crucial, Korzdorfer said. "Any enhancements to make our jobs better and more efficient-whether it be speech recognition or different types of enhancements with our electronic medical record (EMR)-those types of things we've got to be a part of," she asserted.

And Saint Luke's certainly has some projects in mind. Nine out of the 11 facilities use EMR, so Korzdorfer would like to see the remaining two make the switch. The HIM team found success with speech recognition technology, and now they're eyeing computer-assisted coding to improve efficiency.

While directors and managers help streamline processes, Korzdorfer said, "it's the staff who really do the day-to-day job and make us the team that we are."

They plan to celebrate their runner-up recognition with food and fun during HIT week.    

"We always told them that we think they're great and that they're No. 1, but if they can see this in a national magazine I think that's really going to excite them," Korzdorfer said.