Reading, Mass., December 7, 2009 — eWebHealth(TM), the leading provider of electronic workflow solutions for medical records, announced today that the University of Pennsylvania Health System (UPHS), a network of hospitals including The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP), Pennsylvania Hospital (PAH) and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center (PPMC), has extended its relationship with eWebHealth by signing a five year renewal agreement. The UPHS hospitals will continue to use the entire eWebHIM(TM) technology suite from eWebHealth. To date, eWebHealth has processed over one hundred million medical records for the combined UPHS facilities, which has resulted in cost savings, improved efficiencies, increased physician satisfaction and streamlined workflows.
Over the initial six years of the relationship with eWebHealth, the UPHS organization has employed eWebHealth technology to decrease its HIM staff by over 30%, gain over $750,000 of additional reimbursements per year due to fewer denials, shorten the revenue cycle for both hospital and professional fee billing, and provide simultaneous electronic chart access for all authorized users. Delinquency rates across the system are less than 10% and the flagship facility, HUP- has streamlined its medical record coding process to the point that typically bills are being dropped within 24 hours of the patient discharge.
HUP, a 780-bed facility, has been ranked for the second consecutive year by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top 10 hospitals in the U.S. This high volume facility has 35 patient care units, and annually has 45,000 inpatient discharges; over 55,000 ED visits and 26,000 ambulatory surgeries. By the end of the current renewal term, HUP will be storing more than 10 years of electronic medical record history with eWebHealth.
“Over the past six years, eWebHealth has provided our organization with a medical record solution that not only fits into our existing IT infrastructure, but also supplied us with a HIPAA-compliant, secure electronic legal health record (e-LHR) that has achieved countless benefits for our physicians, staff, and most importantly, patients. As our patients are often seen by multiple physicians across UPHS, it is critical that our physicians and staff have real-time access to patient information in order to ensure a seamless continuum of care,” said Rachel Chebeleu, Director of Health Information Management at HUP. “In a time when the healthcare environment is constantly changing, and with new regulatory requirements and complexities being presented, we are confident that our e-LHR solution will continue to meet the changing needs of our organization.”
PPMC, a 314-bed facility, and another distinguished member of the UPHS family, has been using eWebHealth technologies since May 2007 and was recently named one of the nation’s Top 100 Cardiovascular Hospitals by Solucient. “Without the built-in, customized workflows embedded in the eWebHIM technology suite, our HIM staff could not do their jobs efficiently or effectively,” said Shiny George, Director of Health Information Management at PPMC. “The ability to seamlessly integrate the data from our existing information systems into eWebHIM’s centralized repository is something that is critical as we continue to evolve our electronic health record to meet the meaningful use requirements of the HITECH Act.”
“UPHS is one of those customers that we appreciate for many reasons, including the fact that they really put our platform to the test,” said George Abatjoglou, Chief Executive Officer, eWebHealth. “Not only do they process massive volumes of patient information on a daily basis, but they also take maximum advantage of our e-LHR application’s ability to grant simultaneous user access to patient charts. UPHS gives us a unique opportunity to demonstrate our ability to improve efficiencies across all hospital departments and specialties while ensuring the consistent delivery of quality healthcare.”
UPHS has worked closely with eWebHealth in the design and development of the new eWebHIM technology platform — a fully-hosted .NET platform that supports interoperability with a wide range of hospital IT systems, making it easier for hospitals to integrate cutting-edge e-LHR technology with their clinical electronic health record strategies. The eWebHIM suite is a comprehensive medical records workflow solution for healthcare organizations delivered via a software-as-a-service model, for real-time, remote record access; rapid implementation; and low cost of deployment and includes:
• eWebCoding: Provides the tools to eliminate coding backlogs and decreases DNFB days with fast, accurate and fully compliant coding;
• eWebView: Gives clinicians, business offices, HIM staff and auditors anytime, anywhere access to patient records via the Internet to improve clinical and administrative decision making and efficiency;
• eWebCompletion: Makes it easy for physicians to comply with medical record requirements by supporting electronic deficiency analysis, assignment, routing, monitoring and reporting;
• eWebSignature: Allows clinicians to edit and sign off on patient charts wherever and whenever they have Internet access for faster chart completion.
