Sunday, May 09, 1999
Taking paper out of paperwork
Software made for hospitals
BY JOHN ECKBERG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Forms no longer function for hospitals that use software developed by Prograde Inc., a Springdale firm founded in 1994 to reduce or eliminate paper record-keeping for hospitals and some businesses.
While the average hospital has about 2,000 forms for patients or medical procedures, Prograde software is able to cut the amount of paperwork dramatically as well as the size of the facility's budget for paperwork, said Jeff Moder, health-care vice president at Prograde.
Paperwork savings of up to 70 percent can be realized, he said.
“One of the greatest hurdles is that paper is habitual,” Mr. Moder said. “A lot of different players have to be involved in eradicating paper forms: physicians, clinicians and all the administrative staff that support them.
“With all that paper, workers are constantly repeating the same information manually — over and over and again. What are the allergies? The name and address. The admitting diagnosis. We are able to capture that electronically and share it, and that cuts down on the redundancy of manually writing down that information.”
He said the average hospital in a small- to mid-sized town can save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually. A large regional hospital has the potential to save $500,000 to $1 million, officials said.
Prograde's solutions do not necessarily eliminate paperwork, he said, because cybernetics and paper forms usually coexist.
Revenue growth has been dramatic and significant for the firm. Sales in 1994, the company's first year, were $244,000. By 1995, sales were at $1 million. In 1999, sales are projected at $6.5 million.
The company, which employs 29, entered into a joint venture with Optio Software in Atlanta in the fall. The company designs and provides electronic forms to replace paper and serves 600 hospitals.
Prograde provides installation and implementation services to Optio for hospitals and medical centers, Mr. Moder said.
“Hospitals are changing the way they provide health services,” said Glenn Wagner, chief executive officer and chairman of Prograde. “Hospitals are trying to integrate, and provide a seamless approach to capturing and delivering information. We help facilitate that process.”
Perhaps Prograde's greatest strength is in its ability to quickly correct mistakes, Mr. Moder said. Health care is no longer contained within the four walls of a hospital.
With forms duplicated and sent to varying departments, even to outpatient centers across town, correcting mistakes on forms can involve retracing documents far and wide.
“With the average length of stay now two or three days, the patient may be gone — discharged before the mistake can be captured,” he said. With electronic forms, corrections on multiple copies can be instantaneous.
Because hospitals frequently do not have centralized information systems — radiology might have a computer system that is different from admissions, for instance — interconnectivity becomes a mission for companies such as Prograde.
The diverging nature of medical care, with hospital departments frequently at different locations, places more stress on creating formats for information that can be ac cessed from different work stations.
That trend is likely to continue, company officials said. “We feel like we are at the beginning of a pretty huge bell curve for this type of technology,” Mr. Moder said.
The Craven Medical Center in New Bern, N.C., contracted in 1997 with Prograde to develop 1,000 electronic forms for the hospital that serves five counties in eastern North Carolina.
“The significant thing about our contract was that they assumed a great deal of the risk,” said Larry Wallace, chief information officer at Craven Regional Medical Center.
“We contracted with them, and their fee was paid completely out of cost savings. If the cost savings did not come, the fees were not paid until the savings came.”
He said the center is satisfied with the work, the software and the company. The new systems allow bar-coding of forms for each patient, which cuts down on hospital personnel time.
“They finished in March, and it all works. It is neat. There's a ton of benefits to electronic forms other than just cost savings,” he said. Consistency, quicker access and appearance of the forms have been enhanced.
“In a health-care setting, a lot of forms are dictated by government regulations,” Mr. Wallace said. “When forms are created off a computer system as you need them, you always have everybody using the latest correct version of the form, and that is critical in a medical setting.”
Efficiency, though, was the biggest motivator for the changeover, he said.
“The primary advantage is you eliminate the expense of preprinted forms,” he said.
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