Gaining Better Access to EMS Patient Records

Executive summary

St. Elizabeth Healthcare wanted stronger collaboration with the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) agencies serving its community. That meant finding a way to produce measurable insights, simplify documentation, and ease the load on staff. After implementing ESO Health Data Exchange (HDE), the health system saw results in data capture, staff compliance, and day-to-day collaboration with EMS.

Quick stats

Goals for implementing HDE

• Strengthen collaboration between hospitals and EMS
• Use technology to deliver better services to the community
• Improve patient outcomes by bringing prehospital data into the hospital setting
• Streamline the documentation process
• Reduce the paperwork burden on staff

The demand for better data and process

Hospitals across the country increasingly recognize what two-way data sharing with EMS organizations makes possible. When critical information arrives in real time, patient care and performance improve on both sides. Software alone is only part of the answer, though. EMS agencies and hospitals also need a training and implementation process that makes the change stick.

In 2015, St. Elizabeth Healthcare began looking at how to put prehospital data to work in its emergency department. Joshua Ishmael, EMS Community Outreach Coordinator, had recently joined the organization and was searching for software that would improve relationships with EMS, drive community change, and advance patient care.

“My role is to be the interface between the EMS and hospitals. Our mission is to be a community force that is visible, transparent and achieves superior patient outcomes,” says Ishmael. “However, we need good data and process to make sure that happens.”

With five hospitals receiving transports from 35 EMS agencies, the daily volume of runs kept hospital staff hunting for documents, billing information, and the other data required for reporting. The result was frustration and fatigue.

“Our health information management department had mountains of paperwork, which in some cases would cause migraines due to the long periods of screen time.”

Recovery rates were another concern. As Ishmael put it, the organization was working on a fax-print-scan-store basis and recovering only about 60% of runs.

Those frustrations led St. Elizabeth to ESO. “I was on a conference call voicing my annoyance with capturing EMS run reports and an ESO employee said he had an easy solution for getting that data,” Ishmael notes. “From there, we brought in ESO to discuss how EHR [Electronic Health Record] and HDE could work together to deliver data right into the hospital door.”

Planning for success

Preparing for HDE integration took buy-in across departments and steady project management. “I began with the end in mind,” states Ishmael. “I knew what we wanted to achieve with HDE, so I started with the outcomes and worked backwards from there.”

Staff acceptance mattered most. Each department needed to see the value for itself, so Ishmael worked alongside ESO staff to help stakeholders at both the hospital and EMS level understand what HDE offered.

“Hospital administrators appreciated HDE from a Joint Commission standpoint and EMS was interested in how they could review outcomes and improve quality assurance,” offers Ishmael. “We worked to answer questions and remove barriers, so everyone felt confident about what they were getting.”

Connecting with those stakeholders early proved just as important as demonstrating value. Once people saw what HDE could do, preparation began in earnest, with EMS recording the contact serial number system wide starting in spring 2016.

“We engaged with ESO right out of the gate and they got us what we needed to have a strong start. They were partners from the start.”

Receiving results

St. Elizabeth Healthcare went live on HDE in November 2017, and the difference showed up right away. “We started seeing results immediately,” says Ishmael. “On day one, we had 98 percent compliance with CSN capture.” He credits advance awareness and training for that figure.

“It was seamless, because capturing the right data had been hardwired into the process. Plus, we’re collaborating with EMS like never before.”

Faster, cleaner data collection has eased the strain on staff as well. “HDE has made everyone’s lives a whole lot easier. Our medical records team is no longer leaving work with migraines from staring at a computer all day,” adds Ishmael.

EMS agencies are seeing value on their side too. “EMS is excited about what they’re getting and, of course, they want more data,” says Ishmael. “We’ve had agencies tailor their 2018 training based on what they’ve seen in HDE. Their processes and training are becoming more relevant and evidenced-based as they compile new outcomes.”

For St. Elizabeth Healthcare, this is a starting point rather than a finish line. “Even though we’re still in our infancy in gathering data, we can see the benefits of HDE,” notes Ishmael. “It’s a great way to help us guide what we do in the future.”

Future planning

Looking ahead, the team is interested in what else HDE can surface, including lab values and narration in the outcomes report. “We’ve got an extra tool in our toolbox and we’re ready to make the most of it,” says Ishmael.

For hospitals weighing whether HDE would benefit their own organization, Ishmael offers this: “Everybody in the country should be using HDE and data to serve our patients and community better. We live here and we all have our part to do. At the end of the day, everybody wins when we use data to improve patient care.”

Learn more about ESO Health Data Exchange