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The Moses H. Cone Memorial Hospital Simplifies and Customizes
Patient Registration with OptioMedForms

As a Level II Trauma Center and the preferred healthcare provider in Greensboro, North Carolina, The Moses H. Cone Hospital attends to many patients in a year. With 547 beds, the 44 year old hospital is an institution in the community offering a myriad of inpatient and outpatient services.

However, serving so many patients also has its administrative dilemmas. One of the biggest problems facing the admission services at Moses Cone Hospital was that they were using too many pre-printed forms and had too many copies of each. "We were using a separate form for inpatient, outpatient and emergency department registrations and were making a ridiculous number of copies of each," explained Ruth Smith, director of admission services for Moses Cone Hospital. "There were 12 copies of the inpatient form alone. I knew there had to be a better way."

As part of a reengineering program at the hospital, Smith headed a team that looked for opportunities to improve access to patient data with the ultimate goal to reduce costs and streamline the process. As part of their efforts, they also looked at the amount of money being spent on pre-printed forms.

The group evaluated how the numerous forms were being used and confirmed that there were too many. "We found that we could standardize with just one form instead of three and eliminate all the extra copies," Smith explained.

"We wanted to incorporate all the standard patient demographic registration information-date of birth, sex, marital status, etc. with assignment of benefits and authorization to release information as well as a valuables disclaimer," Smith continued. "We also had a request from nursing administration to add a line to the document which would authorize posting a patient's name on a board at the nurses station. We wanted to let patients authorize five separate statements with one signature on one form.

"Our IDX patient management software alone couldn't support the new form we wanted to create, so we looked for other opportunities.

"They didn't have to look far. Smith had read an article in the National Association of Hospital Admitting Managers Journal (NAHAM) about a product from Optio Software called OptioMedForms. At the same time one of her managers had seen a demo of OptioMedForms at the National NAHAM show.

OptioMedForms allows you to perform key healthcare functions using your current applications. With OptioMedForms you can customize and create forms; print documents based on an unlimited number of conditions; merge patient data with forms; automatically distribute data throughout the hospital; and more.

"We quickly selected OptioMedForms over other packages because it would work with our IDX software and create the forms we wanted. OptioMedForms not only let us eliminate unnecessary forms, it also allows us to customize the forms as we see fit. I was also impressed with the customer service department at Optio," Smith said.

In addition to consolidating the three registration forms and assignment of benefits forms into one, OptioMedForms allows admission services to remotely print a copy at patient accounting. "Every time we register a patient, a copy of the form gets printed in patient accounting," Smith continued. "This way we don't have to make copies and hand-deliver them. It's done automatically.

"This new combined patient registration form is just the beginning for Moses Cone Hospital. Eventually, the system will be installed at The Women's Hospital of Greensboro and other sites as well. They will also be using it to create other forms. For example, the Important Messages from Medicare forms.

"Right now we have to keep supplies of certain forms on hand," Smith explained. "Every time there is a change in that form, we have to throw out our inventory and order new ones. In time, we hope to use OptioMedForms to print that form on an as-needed basis and make any changes or updates electronically without having to inventory any additional forms.

"OptioMedForms is saving us more than $75,000 this year. And next year our savings will be even greater. We know there are plenty of uses for OptioMedForms and we'll be implementing many of them in the near future. However, for now, OptioMedForms has more than met our needs," Smith concluded.