Automating the Lab Order Entry Process in Telehealth
CASE STUDY | TELESCOPE HEALTH
Organization: Telescope Health
Location: Jacksonville, FL
Goals: Increase efficiency, reduce errors, align to provider workflows
Results: Improved accuracy, reduced data entry process by 85%, reduced error rates by 70%, reduced manual labor by 4 FTEs
Telescope Health, a telemedicine provider in Northeast Florida, chose Boston WorkStation to automate patient registration and order entry during the COVID-19 crisis. Telescope Health went from a high-touch, low-volume, concierge telemedicine service to seeing upwards of 7,000 patients within a 6-week period.
Lab orders went from a mere 30 per day, skyrocketing upwards to 600 per day, slowing the registration and order entry process, and making the manual process impossible to sustain. Providers and FTEs were working 20 hours a day, in three shifts, registering and processing patients online and at mobile testing sites, which were set up in coordination with Baptist Health and the city of Jacksonville. Efficiency was extremely important to this telehealth organization whose mission is to set a higher standard of care for patients across Northeast Florida.
The Challenge
Roughly 400 million ambulatory visits can be handled by telemedicine each year in the United States. Telescope Health witnessed an upsurge of telehealth services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Because quality of care is dependent on the entire chain of data collection and processing, Telescope Health needed a way to keep up with increasing patient volumes and sustain daily processing needs with accuracy and completeness.
The organization was focused on eliminating the manual, error-prone process of manual data entry, and reducing the time it took to process new patients in the LabCorp and Quest systems.
“One of the challenges with our manual process has been integrating data from external systems back to our internal system. The original process resulted in a high error rate that caused additional manual work for our integration team. After our implementation with Boston Software Systems, 85% of our data entry process is being done by automation and our overall error rate for integration has dropped by 70%.”
– Billy Burns, Senior Solutions and Strategy Officer at Telescope Health
The Solution
On the laboratory side, orders need to include consistent, complete information that meets defined standards, otherwise providers are busy patching holes in the ordering process. Boston WorkStation was able to #bridgethegaps for providers, staff, systems, and work queues, supporting time and budgetary constraints.
The process that previously took 5 FTEs, working on three shifts, manually entering one patient at a time in the system, is now automated, requiring only one floating FTE. Every order entered is complete, and the communication process loop is closed. The automation was quickly scaled to over 200 providers, across mobile testing sites, throughout the city of Jacksonville, and across Northeast Florida.
“Boston WorkStation was instrumental in helping Telescope Health quickly scale our COVID-19 testing operations for the City of Jacksonville. At the height of our initiative, we were screening over 300 people per day. This required a massive amount of manpower to organize the encounters, generate scheduled reports, place orders in two separate lab portals, and schedule their drive-through testing appointments. Boston WorkStation reduced this to a single employee in an oversight role. We have now used Boston WorkStation’s automation in several additional order entry and data projects.”
– Dr. Mathew Thompson, COO Telescope Health
When tackling healthcare’s biggest challenges, you need partners that understand healthcare. You need more than just connectivity from one access point to another. You need industry-leading automation solutions coupled with the expertise to apply them to your unique workflows.
Why Boston Software Systems?
Boston Software Systems understands that people are driving the processes in caring for thousands of patients every day. Working as a digital ally, automation adapts to changing circumstances quickly, adding efficiency and supporting existing workflows.
Ready to improve your operational performance? Contact Boston Software Systems at: 866.653.5105 or visit us at: www.bostonsoftwaresystems.com
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