The Last Mile of EHR implementation - Moving towards a Paper-Lite Environment.
Table of Contents
1) The Last Mile of the EHR implementation:. 2
2) What our Clients/Customers are saying about our RIM Programs:. 4
3) APA’s Complimentary/Free Multidimensional Pre-Assessment. 5
4) APA’s 16-Point Execution RIM Value Care Programs:. 5
5) Part VI – Let’s Talk:. 10
1) The Last Mile of the EHR implementation:
In the Healthcare industry 97% of hospitals have migrated to EHR systems and many hospitals are working on 2.0 upgrades with integrated AI-based analytics. However, the legacy paper records of the many years of paper usage continue to remain in storage vendors warehouses, even though many of these historical records may now have been well past their retention maturity and thus no longer have any value to patients or the organization, thereby unnecessarily eating up huge portions of the organization’s records storage budget with negative ROI. It’s time to say goodbye to analysis paralysis of “what to do” with your “left behind Legacy Paper Records”. Let’s Talk
A major GPO has estimated that the total cost of paper records in the U.S. healthcare system is substantial and daunting, at an estimated $18 billion to $22 billion, in unnecessary annual expenses, which includes the cost of paper, printers, toner, physical storage space and the labor to manage the same. This GPO also long advocated the importance of expense reduction noting that “Every dollar saved equals five dollars in new revenues”
Although it’s tempting to define the mission of EHR as completed, for those organizations with tons-loads of no-value historical records that remain on vendors' warehouse shelves, their EHR last-mile journey is not yet finished, until these paper records move to a Paper-Lite environment.
At most healthcare organizations, legacy paper storage represents an average of 20,000 boxes (40 million sheets of paper) up to 500,000 boxes (1 billion sheets of paper) per organization.
In healthcare, the gold standard, Stage 7 of the HIMSS Infrastructure Adoption Model (INFRAM) is when healthcare institutions can use their EHR system to provide a strong analytic capability and use technology in a meaningful way for the benefit of the patients. This Stage-7 includes “not using paper charts to deliver and manage patient care.”
The APA RIM Transformation Model is geared toward working with your organization’s Financial, Operations, Administration & Supply Chain Management leadership with Data-Driven Facts driving towards a PaperLite environment while ensuring that the right services are utilized for, Improving the Process, and Driving Down Costs.
APA RIM expertise is empowered by utilizing staffing from fields such as healthcare, records management, information technologies, banking, accounting, business analytics, and business management, and partners with AI and technology-oriented companies to provide best-in-class leveraging solutions to transform our clients’ legacy paper process and move toward a Paper-Lite process.
Keeping the legacy paper, “in case you need it,” just isn’t an optimal strategy. It’s time to say goodbye to analysis paralysis of “what to do” with your “left behind Legacy Paper Records”. Let’s Talk
2) What our Clients/Customers are saying about our RIM Programs:
“Above PAR Advisors immediately engaged with us, developing the plan transformation, efficiency, and cost-effective process. They did a thorough audit, framed the issues fast, deployed the right skills, and inserted good infrastructure, and we were off and running. Good results were driven from the very beginning and continue to flow. Most importantly, there is no burden on the client’s staff capture these savings, as APA handles all the heavy lifting. They are great to work with.” (New York-based healthcare teaching institution).
“Over the last two years, we successfully consolidated and centralized all record/paper storage. This project started with many areas full of paper and boxes not stored in compliance with regs, fire hazard issues, and multiple storage contracts with different pricing. I highly recommend speaking with Above PAR Advisors if you have similar issues.” (Regional Westchester-based specialty hospital.
3) APA’s Complimentary/Free Multidimensional Pre-Assessment
Providing a Spectrum Analytics and Situational Awareness of the client’s records information storage, management, and operations to reveal all the open issues and what can be done to truly transform, optimize, improve quality, improve operational efficiency, improve service delivery, drive down cost, and move toward a Paper-Lite environment.
4) APA’s 16-Point Execution RIM Value Care Programs:
4.01) Current & Forward Savings: This program aims to lower, stabilize, and control costs over 10+ years on the road to a Paper-Lite Environment. This includes a series of diagnostics and analytics against a structured cost/value base with a core goal of initially providing 35% to 55% cost savings within the first year and continuing to drive down costs until a Paper-Lite environment is achieved.
4.02) Catch Invoice Errors: Provides a service that reconciles the monthly invoices against the contractual rates and highlights any discrepancies before the invoices are paid, thus preventing client payment frustration.
4.03) Inventory Management: Provides expertise and management to ensure that the records are identified (indexed/metadata-driven) and that maximum value can be achieved.
4,04) X-Ray Silver Reclamation: Provides execution management of the process to purge and destroy assets and achieve silver reclamation on any RIM materials where it can be achieved, such as MRI Film, CT-scan film, Radiographs, Lithographs, etc.
4.05) Digitization (Scan & Host): Digitization is provided in concert with one or more of APA’s strategic partners. This service provides a program that allows the client to digitize (scan and host their paper records on demand) and retrieve them on an on-demand basis, so they never have to experience delays, lapses, or additional burdens in retrieving scanned and hosted records. Boxes or files that are digitized are then eligible for immediate destruction and, thus, continue to improve efficiency and reduce costs. APA also partners with AI, cloud, and digitization companies to better utilize the massive amount of contextual data within their paper records. This is especially critical with IP records.
4,06) Longitudinal Linkages of Paper & Digital Records: Review the efficiency of ongoing programs to link paper records to digital records, provide efficiency improvements, and, where applicable, execute these programs.
4.07) AI should be applied to ensure active adherence in the need to continuously purge mature boxes/files of records in compliance with the organization’s Records Retention Policy.
4.08) Document Management Service: Provides expertise and management to encourage the client organization to retain records in electronic format and actively discourages the storage of paper copies.
4,09) Vendor Assessment Services: Provides a detailed understanding of the Vendor’s offsite facilities and protocols and looks for efficiency opportunities, including (a) secured access to records, (b) how the records are cataloged/indexed, and how the metadata is used to ensure consistency throughout the entire records inventory, and (c) that the records are always findable.
4.10) Internal Site Cleanup: Provides expertise and management to clean up sites and prevent them from falling into disarray (determining what to keep, destroy, etc.).
4,11) Request for Proposal (RFP): Provides an RFP process to define and vet vendor proposals on the client's behalf, ensuring that each RIM program is presented with the most favorable contract terms and pricing. Each RFP is tailored to the client's requirements.
4.12) Transition Management: Provides management of all facets of any transition from onsite to vendors, from one vendor to another, from a vendor to another site, or to destruction.
4.13) Intellectual Property (IP) Records: Helps improve information management with labeling, metadata tagging, and annotation to improve cross-referencing, speed of discovery, and IP value.
4.14) Retention & Information Governance (IG): APA’s strategic partner provides IG. This service provides a program that allows the client to build and tailor a Retention and Information Governance schedule using an archival database of governmental retention and privacy statutes (e.g., HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bailey, CCPA, GDPR, etc.) and internal policies.
4.15) Managed Services: Provides outsourced management for the client's day-to-day RIM Services using APA’s RIM efficiency experts, thus reducing the client's internal bandwidth requirements and operations cost.
4.16) Permanent Withdrawal (PW) or Purge & Destruction (P&D): In addition to Storage & Usage Cost, Records Information Management Storage also carries Contingent Liabilities Cost (an expense to which the client is obligated once a box is intake by the vendor but which will not be assessed until a later date) to remove records from the vendor’s storage via Permanent Withdrawal (PW) or Purge & Destruction (P&D). These actions include:
4.16.1) Permanent Withdrawal (if you want to move to an alternate vendor or onsite), this charge includes other Associated Costs like Retrieval, Transportation, Fuel Surcharges, Handling, and
4.16.2) Dock Access. The Purge & Destruction of your Records from vendor storage, which includes other Associated Costs like Retrieval, Transportation, Fuel Surcharges, Handling, and “Dock Access”.
4.16.3) Charges for these services are levied on a CF (Cubic Feet) basis with rates varying by client in accordance with the vendor/client agreement and applicable Rate Sheet(s). On average, however, the destruction cost per box is equivalent to the cost of storing a box for approximately seven (7) years (84 Months).
4.16.4) Furthermore, most vendors now restrict how quickly these boxes can be Permanently Withdrawal or Purged & Destroyed, meaning a minimum amount of time that must elapse to complete the required action is imposed, subjecting the client to the additional burden of paying for those records that remain in storage while the vendor during the withdrawal or destruction volume each month. APA helps clients manage this process in an orderly and cost-reducing fashion.
The above individual services are most effective when combined with specific service tranches that help drive the process of a Paper-Lite Environment, based on the client’s unique needs.
5) Part VI – Let’s Talk:
APA RIM programs currently yield 35% to 55% cost savings/expense reduction within the first sixteen (16) Months, which continue on an annual basis with APA or alternatively the clients running the process on an annual basis, until a Paper-Lite cost-effective environment is achieved.
It’s time to say goodbye to analysis paralysis of “what to do” with your “left behind Legacy Paper Records”. Lets Talk - Contact us at:
• 877-425-7051
