Understanding The Children’s Hospital Electronic Medical Record
from Practice Update, Summer 2006
The Children’s Hospital will soon be one of the first pediatric hospitals in the country to have a fully integrated electronic medical record (EMR). Upon completion, the EMR will be a vehicle providing clinical and administrative information real time to all clinicians involved in the continuum of patient care.
Implementation of the EMR is an ongoing process geared toward improving the information technologies used in every aspect of patient care. Our EMR includes applications for both the clinical and administrative aspects of patient care and impacts patients, primary care providers and The Children’s Hospital clinical and administrative staff.
We know that understanding all of the pieces of the EMR, how they fit together and how they will affect you can be difficult. The following update takes a look at several major milestones towards the completion of our EMR and provides resources for additional information or questions.
TCH Connect
TCH Connect is the web-based portal connecting primary care providers to their patients’ electronic medical record via the Internet. TCH Connect provides access to patient visits at The Children’s Hospital, including, urgent, emergent, laboratory, radiology, ambulatory and soon, inpatient visits. All of our ambulatory clinics, and the Emergency Department are charting electronically.
Over 40 community practices have been connected to the system and are using it on a regular basis. It is consistently accessed over 1,000 times each month by community providers like you. The Children’s Hospital Physician Relations department would be happy to provide TCH Connect access to your practice. Please contact us at 720-777-1234.
Faxed Reports
As The Children’s Hospital continues to integrate the EMR into the clinical setting, reports become available online and via fax at shorter intervals. Notes and summaries from emergent, urgent and ambulatory visits and the operating room are auto-faxed to the referring provider as quickly as possible. Emergent, urgent and operative reports are sent within 24 hours. Ambulatory visit notes are sent soon thereafter.
Electronic Signature
The Children’s Hospital went live with ‘In Basket’ which is the electronic signature function of our EMR. Effective May 16, the legal records for all transcriptions is the electronic chart and all transcriptions will now be authenticated electronically.
Referring physicians and all other cc’d members of a patient’s chart will receive a final copy of the transcription as soon as it has been electronically signed by the responsible provider. Operative notes will continue to be sent out in draft form, immediately following the procedure.
For questions or additional information about electronic signature please contact the Health Information Management Department by calling The Children's Hospital at 720-777-1234.
Clinical Documentation and Clinical Physician Order Entry
The Children’s Hospital will roll-out two inpatient modules of our electronic medical records this fall. We will be going live with Clinical Documentation and Computerized Physician Order Entry. Once those are complete, all inpatient charting will be completed electronically. TCH Connect users will be able to log on at any time to access the inpatient chart for their patients. In addition, inpatient notes will be faxed to the primary care provider at a predetermined interval or event.
We will continue to provide you updates on this exciting transition. If you have questions or comments regarding electronic communication from the inpatient setting, we are interested in hearing from you. Please call the Physician Relations department at The Children's Hospital at 720-777-1234.
