Altoona Regional Advances EMR Initiative with Electronic Forms on Demand Solution from Access

Jan. 31, 2012 - PRLog -- Administrators at Altoona Regional Health System, based in Altoona, Pa., wanted a consolidated solution for generating barcoded electronic forms on demand and patient wristbands at its three facilities: Altoona Hospital Campus, 7th Avenue Campus and Altoona Regional Surgery Center.

“We chose Access Intelligent Forms Suite for its ability to apply patient data to e-forms, labels and armbands hospital-wide,” said Adrianna Miner, systems analyst at Altoona Regional. “It also gives us the ability to centrally manage our e-forms project for multiple sites.”

When a patient is registered, Access Intelligent Forms Suite pulls data from their Siemens HIS record and puts it onto a forms packet and a sheet of barcoded labels. At the same time, the Access solution dynamically creates barcoded wristbands with unique identifiers. Nurses can print additional barcoded forms or labels as needed. Departments across the enterprise, including Altoona Regional’s outpatient surgery department, have adopted a similar process.

“By creating both barcoded labels and armbands, Access Intelligent Forms Suite ensures we’re verifying each patient’s identity throughout their visit,” Miner said. “It also supports functions such as blood work for the lab, which further enhances patient safety.”

Once a patient completes his or her forms, they are scanned into the Siemens Enterprise Document Management (EDM) system. Access is the exclusive e-forms partner for Siemens. Access Intelligent Forms Suite delivers seamless, two-way integration by dynamically pulling data onto forms from Siemens MedSeries4 (MS4) or Soarian and then creating a patient-specific forms barcode that enables one-time scanning into Soarian EDM with no manual indexing required.

“The barcodes that Access Intelligent Forms Suite places on our e-forms enables us to scan them into EMRs without any additional effort,” Miner said.

Altoona Regional recently changed the size of its labels to incorporate more information, successfully increasing patient safety and providing more indexing points.

“I was very pleased with how easy it was to change the size of our labels and to add additional fields using Access’s forms design tool,” Miner said.

With any software used in patient care, responsive vendor support is crucial to keep things running smoothly. Miner feels that Access is helping Altoona Regional get maximum benefits from its e-forms project.

“I’m very pleased with Access’s support team,” she said. “They’re pleasant to talk to and are always eager to help.”

About Altoona Regional
Altoona Regional is a charitable, not-for-profit healthcare system governed by a volunteer community board of directors. Acute care services are provided at two hospital campuses, the Altoona Hospital Campus and the 7th Avenue Campus. The hospitals are licensed for a combined 497 beds. The health system serves more than 20 counties throughout Central Pennsylvania. Learn more at http://altoonaregional.org/.

About Access
Access is the world’s leading electronic forms (e-forms) management, automation and workflow software provider. Our solutions transform any paper-intensive forms process into a paperless, collaborative one. Hundreds of hospitals worldwide are using Access solutions to improve patient care and safety, cut costs and enhance electronic health records (EHR), patient safety and downtime planning initiatives. Learn more at http://www.accessefm.com.

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Access is the world’s leading electronic forms management, automation and workflow software provider. Our solutions transform any paper-intensive forms process into a paperless, collaborative one.