ECM Software for Healthcare

Sick of relying on a cumbersome, paper-based system to manage patient care, a leading home healthcare company finally found the medicine it needed. Affordable, easy-to-use and reliable, GlobalSearch quickly transformed the company into a totally electronic, virtually paperless organization. Streamlining its core business operations saved time, money and improved patient care, making the company more competitive and profitable.

Acute Care Experts, Inc. is a home healthcare infusion firm. The company’s nurses care for patients who suffer from chronic medical problems and are in need of antibiotics and other drugs in the home. Acute Care Experts’ nurses administer medications intravenously and provide wound care and other services so that patients can be in their homes rather than a hospital. Based in East Brunswick, New Jersey, Acute Care Experts is accredited by the Community Health
Accreditation Program (CHAP) and has built a solid reputation for high-quality care.
Streamlining case management for optimum efficiency helped Acute Care Experts grow into one of the leading nursing providers in the region. As physicians, nurses and healthcare administrators know all too well, however, paperwork has become as much a part of medicine as hypodermic needles and thermometers. As it grew, Acute Care Experts found that too much paper was interfering with efficiency and good patient care.

Pharmacies refer patients in need of home care to Acute Care Experts. When referring a patient, a pharmacy will fax Acute Care Experts all of the information necessary for the patient’s care. This includes a demographic with basic information about the patient, information from the patient’s physician such as orders for prescription medications and up to 20 pages of documents from the patient’s hospital that include medical history and other data.

Managing the high volume of documents was labor-intensive. “We were just inundated with paper,” recalled Carrie Raisch, Office Manager at Acute Care Experts. “First, we printed out every fax document we received. Then we prepared a file folder, placed all of the documents into the folder and filed the folder. After all of that, we still had to re-fax the documents to our nurses in the field, wasting even more time and paper.”

Realizing they could no longer operate cost-effectively using this system, Acute Care Experts carefully evaluated several Content Management solutions. Raisch said the company chose GlobalSearch because it was very easy to learn and use and it cost less than competing solutions. “GlobalSearch has proven to be extremely reliable, too,” Raisch said. “And Square 9 Softworks’ Professional Services Team gives us great service. They did an excellent job configuring GlobalSearch for our specific requirements and are very responsive to our ongoing needs.”

With GlobalSearch, Acute Care Experts’ patient care system is now sleek and efficient. “We are totally electronic now,” Raisch explained. “All of the documents faxed to us from pharmacies can be viewed on our computers—without having to be printed. We simply choose the documents we need and import them into a GlobalSearch Inbox named “Medical Records” for indexing. Each document is converted to an individual PDF file.”

Instead of having to re-fax documents to patient care nurses in the field, Acute Care Experts’ full-time staff nurse simply emails PDFs of patient documents to field nurses via a secure email system. Patient care forms filled out by the field nurses are mailed to the home office (regulations require originals) and are scanned directly into a GlobalSearch Inbox named “Nurses Notes,” so the patient’s entire record is conveniently available in GlobalSearch.

The efficiency gained using GlobalSearch has translated directly into cost savings. With no paper copies to make and manage, Acute Care Experts was able to eliminate one full-time clerical position and outsource the remaining clerical tasks to an independent administrative aide. Raisch estimated Acute Care Experts is saving about 50 percent of the total cost of the former employee. Gone, too, are the paper and toner expenses associated with making many thousands of copies each month.

Acute Care Experts’ customer service has improved, also. “One of the things we love most about GlobalSearch,” Raisch said, “is that every original document for every one of our patients is safely stored within GlobalSearch and can be easily and quickly retrieved when needed. If a nurse calls and wants to verify what they need to do for a patient, we can get the information quickly. It’s right here at our fingertips.”

Within a short time after installing GlobalSearch, Acute Care Experts began using the solution for its Human Resources and Accounting functions and made plans to double its user licenses. The company is continuing to explore ways to integrate GlobalSearch with its other line-of-business applications.

“GlobalSearch is awesome,” Raisch said. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know how we ever did without it! I would highly recommend GlobalSearch to any company that is burdened with paper and wants to become more efficient and save money. I know they will be more than happy with GlobalSearch—it performs so well.”