This was a big week for our EHR Program. Ministry Medical Group Tomahawk (our EHR Pilot site) reclaimed it’s medical record room. We had hoped this project would eventually mean the end of our on-site chart rooms but we elected not to formally list the objective as part of our ROI. Clinicians are very attached to their paper medical records, providing a date when the paper record would be moved offsite was thought to unnecessarily add stress to going live with the EHR.
With use of the Electronic Health Record (CattailsMD) MMG-Tomahawk clinicians were able to reclaim the paper chart room and convert it for use by patient care staff.
We did everything we could to minimize the need for a paper record going forward:
- We had at least six months of clinical data in the EHR before going live
- We back loaded medical information needed to drive decision support such as health preservation and disease management reminder tools
- We provided a direct link from the EHR to our legacy information systems
- Most importantly we added no more documents to the paper chart after go live.
Our clinicians stopped routinely asking for the paper chart within a month of going live. At about one year post go-live, most chart pulls were for medical release of information not direct paper care. At two years post go-live, charts were rarely requested for direct patient care.
With a transformation to Patient Centered Medical Home, clinicians at Tomahawk needed more clinical space and started to eye the chart room as the answer to their needs. The clinicians then actively lobbied to reclaim the chart room space. Moving the chart room off site has been perhaps our easiest EHR objective to achieve.
MD Leader 
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