MobileMD's Health Information Exchange (HIE) provides the platform for community-based communications and coordination of care, but modules, such as MMD's eShare, allow hospital-based physicians and treatment facilities to better coordinate patient care directly, with each other.
Cindy Hudgins
Project Analyst
Pinnacle Health System
eShareTM is MobileMD's electronic sharing module, allowing users of MobileMD's Enterprise Access application to exchange messages and securely communicate in support of patient care and other healthcare related workflows such as referrals, consults, surgical reservations, and secure general correspondence.
Pinnacle Health System, a non-profit healthcare system serving Central Pennsylvania with four campuses (Community, Cumberland, Harrisburg and Polyclinic) including Specialty and Family Care practices, recently began offering the eShare Module.
As eShare rolls out in the PinnacleHealth area, Cindy Hudgins, Project Analyst at PinnacleHealth, says that, "the goal is to improve patient care with an instant messaging type tool that can really save practices time."
The Women's Outpatient Health Center, an OB/GYN office in Harrisburg with a large high risk pregnancy population, was a perfect candidate for eShare, since they found themselves making numerous referrals to Maternal Fetal Medicine for consults, genetic counseling and fetal ultrasounds.
The problem was the wait time on the phone to schedule an appointment. According to Laura Reynolds, RNC Clinic Supervisor at the Women's Outpatient Health Center, "When our office staff called to schedule services, we often had a lengthy wait before the Maternal Fetal Medicine staff would be free to assist us with scheduling services for our patients. The wait time on the phone was counterproductive in maintaining satisfactory patient flow through our office."
Laura Reynolds
RNC Clinic Supervisor
Women's Outpatient Health Center
After Laura Reynolds told PinnacleHealth that they were interested in eShare, Cindy Hudgins set up a meeting between the Women's Center, Maternal Fetal Medicine and the MobileMD staff. "Cindy set up a face-to-face meeting so that we could meet uninterrupted, and we were able to discuss what process would work best for both offices," notes Ms. Reynolds.
The Women's Center and Maternal Fetal Medicine decided on the following: Twice a day (at approximately 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.), the Women's Center staff sends an eShare referral for each patient needing ordered services to Maternal Fetal Medicine. Then, within 24 hours, Maternal Fetal Medicine responds back to the request with the appointment day and time. The Women's Center then notifies the patient and documents this in the patient's chart.
Not only does eShare eliminate phone time, but the eShare form is also customized to make the appointment request fast and easy. Ms. Reynolds gives an example, "We only have to fill in the specific prenatal info, while the MobileMD HIE system populates all of the patient's demographics and insurance information automatically." Ms. Reynolds points out further that they are able to attach all of the patient's lab results and diagnostic test results that have been completed through PinnacleHealth from within the HIE, and attach, by scanning, all of the patient's office prenatal records and a copy of the insurance card.
"Now, with eShare, my office staff gets the convenience of ordering services from Maternal Fetal Medicine without any wait time, and at the time of our choosing. It allows for better organization of our daily schedule and increases our productivity," adds Ms. Reynolds.
And as for the preparation and installation of eShare, Ms. Reynolds points out that it simply took a meeting between offices and the help of Cindy Hudgins to walk through the basics in a training session.
"MobileMD and PinnacleHealth supported us every step of the way. We couldn't have asked for better technical support and customer service," adds Ms. Reynolds.