Adventist Health Mendocino Coast (AHMC) hospital goes live this week with a new Electronic Health Record (EHR) called Cerner. Last week in the Miller Report, we reviewed a brief history of the development of EHRs and touched on some of the benefits this new system will bring to our hospital and community. Many of the benefits are because we will be moving away from a mix of paper-based systems and the current antiquated EHR. Adventist Health’s investment of some $12 million to bring Cerner to our hospital is an important step in improving the quality and safety of care provided in our community. While we “flip the switch” , so to speak, on December 1st, the complete transition will take several weeks. During that time some people may experience some delays, especially in patient registration, as patient information will need to be entered fresh into the new system since our older, antiquated software is not capable of carrying it over to the new system.
Here are some details that patients should expect:
- Enhancement of the overall the quality of care.
- Improved efficiency of care will reduce wait times for many out-patient services including care in the emergency department.
- Improved communication between the hospital and community clinics and other referring physicians and specialists.
- Faster delivery of lab, x-ray and hospitalization reports.
- Providing a patient portal for hospital and clinic patients
- Patients can look up their own test results.
- Patients can communicate with their providers.
- Patients can make appointments.
- Patients can request medication refills.
- AHMC will now be on the same system as all other Adventist Health facilities, including AH Ukiah Valley and AH Howard Memorial.
- Improved coordination of care.
- Shorter referral times.
- Improve provider and staff job satisfaction leading to better employee and provider retention
The AHMC team has spent a lot of time preparing for this system conversion which is literally a complete overhaul of the current system. This preparation has included extensive training for all the staff. While every effort has been made to ensure the transition occurs smoothly, there may well be unanticipated challenges. This is to be expected in a software conversion of this magnitude. Initially, it is possible that some wait times will be slightly longer than usual, as we work out any kinks in the system and our staff start working with the new system. We ask for your patience and understanding, and we apologize in advance if you experience any inconvenience.
The hospital leadership is committed to addressing any issues or concerns that patients may have during this transition. Please, reach out to our Patient Advocate, Janet Turner, for assistance or to give feedback. She can be reached at 707-463-7362 and by email at turnerje@ah.org.
Miller Report for the Week of November 28th, 2022; by William Miller, MD
You can access all previous Miller Reports online at www.WMillerMD.com.
Dr. Miller is a practicing hospitalist and the Chief of Staff at Adventist Health Mendocino Coast hospital in Ft. Bragg, California. The views shared in this weekly column are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher or of Adventist Health.
Having worked with this system for five years I can say that the Cerner EMS is a complete fiasco, adding hours to physicians’ work day without any concomitant improvement in patient care. Its utility lies in aggregating patient information for commercial purposes. That Dr. Miller would shill for them is an act of startling naivete.