Baptist Health Hospital is located in South Florida. It is a non-profit organization favored by philanthropy and focused on a charitable mission of medical excellence based on faith. It has seven hospitals and over 50 outpatient facilities ranging over 3 counties and is the biggest health care organization in the region. 15000 employees 2200 physicians holding national and international reputation. Number of beds totaled 1761 as of 2015 .
The sole mission of Baptist Health is to enhance the health and overall wellbeing of patients and to encourage the preservation and sanctity of life in communities . It is a faith-based organization directed by the spirit of Jesus Christ and Judeo-Christian principles. It aims at maintaining high quality standards of clinical excellence of services, with high level of integrity and moral practices.
Insurance Plans
Baptist health is engaged in Original Medicare and in Medicare Advantage HMOs provided by companies such as Coventry, AvMed, Florida Blue and Medical .
Population Served
Serves around 100000 patients every year. Over 12,000 people travel all the way from Latin America and Caribbean to Baptist Health Facilities every year to avail of the best Medicare care services. Their multilingual staff is committed in providing valuable and personalized services .
Services offered
Outpatient Services
Baptist Medical Plazas and outpatient facilities offer front-line surgical, diagnostic and critical care services in a cozy and comfortable environment . Baptist Health provides a wide range of surgical, medical and technological services that includes pediatrics, weight loss surgery, addiction treatment and cancer care provided by famous physicians. The health care facility offers a wide range of services that include Cancer services, neonatal, occupational, orthopedic, cardiovascular, pediatric, diabetes services. It also has centers for diagnostic imaging, primary care, sleep centers, endoscopy, rehabilitation centers.
Rehabilitation services
Upon recommendation from the physicians, the hospitals provide specially trained therapists work towards providing quality treatment for physical, speech and occupational therapy to treat injuries and physical conditions. The facility provides hug gym with a wide range of equipment, personal treatment spaces, and licensed physical and speech therapists.
Certifications & Accreditations
South Miami Hospital ranked sixth in the U.S to bag the Joint Commission Gold Seal of consent for pre-term labor and ranked ninth to receive the Joint Commission Gold Seal of Approval for prematurity.
American Association of Gynecologic Laparoscopists (AAGL) awarded Centre for Women and infants an accreditation as a Center of Excellence for minimally Invasive Gynecology . This title considers hospitals, surgeons, and ambulatory surgery centers around the world that offer minimally - invasive gynecologic surgical care at inpatient and outpatient level. The Miami Cardiac and Vascular Institute also holds accreditation in many areas such as the Joint commission, Intersocietal accreditation Commission, American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation, comprehensive stroke center.
Health Information Users
Physicians the Baptist Health Quality Network, which is a clinically incorporated network established with the goal of improving the quality and value of health care in South Florida . The network involves over 1000 of the area’s renowned physicians, working in association with Baptist Health, to develop a detailed, patient oriented healthcare delivery system.
Nurses
Nurses at Baptist play a significant role in every aspect of care, from bedside to the surgery room, administration and diagnostic centers as well as classrooms . They focus on patient and family oriented personalized treatment and care, paying due respect to patient’s culture, family circumstances and values.
Patients
Baptist Health also provides a free service, called myBaptistHealth that offers secure online accessibility to medical records and health information . This system allows the patients to view medical health records, test results, tracking allergies, medicines and health status, management of profile and other details, receiving confidential messages from the Baptist health regarding personal health information and also starting up of family accounts .
Health Management system
Baptist Health earlier utilized the Siemens SMS Invision product that is employed as their base system . They had other systems such as Siemens radiology and pharmacy applications and Horizon laboratory systems connected to this base application.
For their inpatient facilities, Baptist utilizes Sovera document management system by American Management Systems, Inc. . This system enables physicians to obtain prompt access to post-discharge to all types of documents related to patient’s inpatient care along with scanned documents.
The NetAccess platform enables sharing of information by web-dependent viewing throughout the network. Additionally, Siemen’s dashboard Application also permits physicians to enter additional applications through single interface that can be accessed from any other locations. Owing to this platform, the clinicians have also benefitted from easy and remote access to the data, at any given of time.
Previously, the physicians had to enter the notes and orders on a paper which was then scanned and stored into Sovera and transferred to the relevant recipient (pharmacy, radiology or laboratory).
Recently, Baptist health has declared its decision regarding transitioning to electronic charting system which would eliminate the requirement to use paper charting. Baptist health is currently considering electronic health information system Cerner electronic health record (EHR) . Cerner seeks to enhance the previous Cerner Soarian Financials revenue cycle management solutions (RCM).
Strengths of this system includes interoperability allows communication and exchange of health records with external health organizations nationally and regionally. Other advantages of the computerized provider order entry (CPOE) and EHR are more efficient and cleaner documentation and better billing systems. EHR has also given physicians an incentive to be more cautious and careful .
Medical Records
The confidentiality of all the patient data and health care information is preserved and safeguarded by the regulations of State and Federal laws and HIPA. Appropriate consent and authorization is required to release the medical records .
Conclusions
Baptist Health South Florida is a massive multi-facility healthcare organization in the region with seven hospitals and around 50 outpatient and emergency care centers spanning across three countries. Its pineapple symbol is a representation of hospitality showing a patient-oriented focus or warmth and welcome . It offers premium health care services in gamut of specialties. Its international reach is evidenced from the fact that people travel all the way from Caribbean and Latin America, to seek out its health care facilities.
The health management system at Baptist Health has evolved over time from the conventional paper records system to electronic health record platforms, which has not only made the system more user-friendly and convenient to use for the physicians, clinicians, nurses, staff and patients, but also made the system more efficient, enhancing the health care delivery for the patients. The hospitals are committed to maintain the confidentiality of the patient information and adhere to the regulations pertaining to the release of this data .
The transition from paper-based information system to screen-based electronic health record system has tremendously enabled the health care professionals to monitor medication in a better manner and has ensured cleaner documentation and better billing . This transition has involved numerous strategies for successful execution of novel information systems, which include: phasing, training, support, iterative procedures, ensuring security of the system, evaluation of the impact of systems. This transition has been smooth and users admitted that they benefitted from the change overall, despite minor accommodations .
Strengths
One of the major strengths of the EHR system is the interoperability and exchange of reports and patient information between hospitals and centers . This change has facilitated the communication, since physicians at a particular location are able to access lab results and images obtained from another hospital and can mutually deliberate upon a treatment plan. Another positive impact has been the increased efficiency and enhanced compliance with the security guidelines. The increase in efficiency of access and management of patient information has allowed a surge in the inflow of patients. In the opinion of most physicians, the paper to screen transition was an enhancement in terms of security.
Weaknesses and barriers
While the overall response regarding the transition in the hospital’s current health information technology infrastructure has been positive, many hurdles have been faced in terms of execution of a necessary set of functionalities . Some of the hurdles were:
Physician buy-in
While the physicians at Baptist commended the systems executed and planned by the hospitals, they admitted that they represented the biased advocates for Health Information Technology among the Baptist physician community. They indicated that the clinicians faced crucial challenges pertaining to physician education and buy-in to optimize clinical and administrative benefits from new systems execution .
Interoperability
Users encountered some hurdles related to the interoperability of the system with regards to interfacing across inpatient systems and in terms of establishing interfaces to outpatient systems utilized in the physicians’ offices . Although, they had initially compiled several systems under a central vendor, Siemens, the difficulty of designing and maintaining interfaces with other systems within the hospital persisted. Hospital staff reported that not many Baptist physicians used to employ any form of EHR in their home office, owing to these hurdles. To fill in these gaps and keeping in mind the shortcomings of the existing health management platforms, Baptist Health has recently announced its move from Siemens to Cerner, Inc. developed EHR system. This updated EHR system hopes to provide Baptist Health with an integrated and encompassing health information technology system
References
Baptist Health South Florida. (n.d.). Retrieved from glassdoor.co.in: https://www.glassdoor.co.in/Overview/Working-at-Baptist-Health-South-Florida-EI_IE7671.11,39.htm?&countryRedirect=true
Baptist Health South Florida. (2016). Retrieved from Baptisthealth.net: https://baptisthealth.net/en/pages/home.https://baptisthealth.net/en/patient-visitor/pages/health-plans.aspx
Baptist Health South Florida Selects Cerner for Enterprise-Wide Health IT System. (2015, August 4). Retrieved from globenewswire.com. Cerner: https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2015/08/04/757759/10144599/en/Baptist-Health-South-Florida-Selects-Cerner-for-Enterprise-Wide-Health-IT-System.html
Barach, P. (2004, June 29). Elecronic Health Record (EHR) Case Study Report. Retrieved from acadeia.edu: http://www.academia.edu/10469763/Report_on_Implementation_of_Electronic_Health_Records_EHRs_and_other_Health_Information_Technology_HIT_Florida_Agency_for_Health_Care_Administration
Center for Women and Infants. (2016). Retrieved from BaptistHealth.net: https://baptisthealth.net/en/facilities/south-miami-hospital/pages/center-for-women-infants.aspx
Patient and Visitor Guide. (2016). Retrieved from Baptisthealth.net: https://baptisthealth.net/en/patient-visitor/pages/obtaining-medical-records.aspx
