Iron Mountain Helps Hospitals Adopt Electronic Medical Records

Iron Mountain Incorporated is combining its services for document scanning, file archiving, data backup and more into one solution for hospitals and healthcare organizations converting hardcopy patient files into an electronic medical record (EMR) system.

The new Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution offers healthcare organizations a set of tools for digitizing patient records, archiving electronic files, protecting them from disaster, and then destroying outdated records.

While EMR systems promise to improve patient care and cut treatment costs, healthcare organizations are uncertain how to implement digital records using existing resources and without disrupting patient care. The Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution makes the paper-to-EMR transition easier and faster for hospitals by helping them identify which records to digitize and which to destroy. It also helps hospitals address essential first steps for organizing and digitizing patient information in advance of adopting an EMR system and positioning themselves to receive a share of the billions available in federal incentives for successful implementation.

"Adopting an electronic medical record system is critical to providing the highest standards of patient care," said Lori P. Jayne, director of Health Information Management and privacy officer for Lahey Clinic. "As a multi-disciplinary, clinically-focused hospital, our challenge is to bridge the gap between paper and electronic records and get the right information to our caregivers when they need it most. Iron Mountain is enabling that access and successfully preparing the Clinic for an EMR system. We have already improved patient care quality as a result of their approach."

The Challenge of Paper to Digital
Most hospitals have patient records dispersed across their organization or bottled up in specific departments. These records are often copied so caregivers can share them across clinical areas. This produces disconnected inventories of information without a consistent management process. This is further complicated by the transition to EMR, which can necessitate maintaining patient information in both paper and electronic formats.

"Our current paper-based US healthcare system wastes hundreds of billions of dollars annually," writes Forrester Research Principal Analyst Craig le Clair in the independent report, Electronic Medical Records Need More To Support "Meaningful Use" (May 2010). "Transforming this into a streamlined 21st century electronic system will require moving though stages of maturity from paper-based to hybrid environments and ultimately to interoperable EHRs and adoption of online personal health records (PHRs) for individuals." The report also states, "[P]roviders have a great opportunity to streamline operational processes. But this requires understanding the current state limitations and developing a realistic road map that prioritizes processes that can be reasonably achieved."

Iron Mountain has extensive expertise in helping hospitals and healthcare organizations identify which parts of the patient records to digitize and make accessible for treating patients. Iron Mountain digitizes these documents, making sure information is captured and categorized in the right format for easy integration into an EMR system.

Iron Mountain’s EMR Enablement Solution includes a suite of document scanning capabilities for delivering information into an EMR system. Combining records storage and shredding services with Iron Mountain’s LiveVault and the Iron Mountain Digital Record Center for Medical Images for the backup and archiving of medical data, Iron Mountain’s EMR Enablement Solution helps ensure patient information is readily available while also maintaining its security and compliance with industry and regulatory standards.

"It’s no secret that transitioning to an EMR system is the single biggest priority for the healthcare industry, but the scope of the transition is overwhelming, especially given the volume of records and the fact that many organizations retain records forever," said Ken Rubin, senior vice president and general manager, Healthcare Services for Iron Mountain. "Our goal is to make the transition more manageable, while reducing the costs and risks of managing this information. We can help them get control over their information and operate efficiently as they tackle this new hybrid world of paper and electronic medical records. By intelligently scanning new records and imaging existing information as needed, we help customers reduce their use of paper in a cost effective way. And, because in many cases we already store the paper files, we can implement this in a more practical way."

The Iron Mountain EMR Enablement Solution includes:

• Day-forward scanning of documents that remain paper-based, even after conversion to an EMR system;
• Image on Demand capabilities for the conversion and delivery of medical records;
• Backfile scanning for cost-effective bulk conversion of historical paper records;
• Compliant and secure cloud-based archiving and disaster-recovery capabilities through LiveVault (server-based backup) and the Digital Record Center for Medical Images (archiving and backup of unstructured data);
• Additional records management and secure shredding capabilities for paper records;
• Consulting expertise drawn from managing hardcopy and digital healthcare information for more than 2,000 hospitals, and scanning 10 million pages per month at more than 80 Iron Mountain imaging centers throughout the U.S.

To listen to the podcast from Lahey Clinic Director of Health Information Management and Privacy Officer Lori P. Jayne discuss her organization’s EMR implementation