Photo By Douglas Stutz | Sharing lessons learned... Representative Jim Banks from the House Veterans Affairs...... read more read more
When Representative Jim Banks from the House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC) entered Naval Hospital Bremerton (NHB) on August 30, 2018, it wasn’t his initial arrival at a Navy command’s quarterdeck.
NHB welcomed the Indiana congressman, who has served in the U.S. Navy Reserve as a supply corps officer and deployed to Afghanistan in 2014 and 2015.
Banks was at NHB, along with Ms. Stacy Cummings, program executive officer for the Program Executive Office, Defense Health Management Systems, to discuss another deployment of sorts.
Banks is the chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization, primarily concerning the implementation of the new electronic health record MHS GENESIS. He called upon NHB to meet with clinical, information technology, support and project management teams to discuss interoperability, workflow, challenges and project implementation with MHS GENESIS.
“I am here to listen and learn, and hear how things are going,” said Banks.
MHS GENESIS is a single integrated electronic health record for service members, veterans and their families that integrates inpatient and outpatient medical and dental information across the continuum of care, from point of injury – whether ship, shore, submarine, and squadron - to the military hospital or clinic.
Banks was shown NHB’s Primary Care Clinic and Urgent Care Center and shared in focus groups with NHB’s patient administration, referral management, appointing, information management and material management departments.
Lt. Cmdr. Bryan Wooldridge, NHB chief medical informatics officer, provided a succinct overview of NHB’s experience with MHS GENESIS.
“We were the third site overall for MHS GENESIS, but the first site with a significant inpatient population. We did run into a few sticking points. Training had room for improvement, however MHS GENESIS is very configurable as opposed to other systems. From that perspective, it is very flexible to be implemented in our hospital. We have made significant progress and improvements that will benefit future site rollouts,” explained Wooldridge, noting that with any new electronic health record, change management was key.
From providing patient-centered care, medical coding procedures, business efficiency practices, and cyber security awareness, NHB staff members shared lessons learned, best practices, experience, and expertise.
“Log-in issues were initially a bit of an issue, but MHS GENESIS is a more robust system. As an example, as a provider, I can look at other notes entered on a patient seen at Madigan Army Medical Center. That’s really very helpful,” said Dr. Erica Grogan, NHB primary care physician.
The first anniversary of NHB deploying MHS GENESIS is on Sept. 23, and as explained to Banks, during the past year NHB’s staff have continued to refine and enhance their collective ability in operating the new electronic health record.
“We have had a lot of growth and change over the last year. A common factor in a lot of us is that we work here to make it better because that’s what we chose to do here and nowhere else. This is our command, our hospital, and our duty,” stated Roger Smith, NHB Information Management clinical liaison.
“MHS GENESIS is much more integrated and capable than our legacy systems and we are excited to ultimately have the DoD and VA on the same electronic health record platform in the future,” commented Capt. Jeffrey Bitterman, NHB commanding officer.
NHB is one of the four sites in the Pacific Northwest, along with U.S. Air Force 92nd Medical Group at Fairchild Air Force Base, Naval Health Clinic Oak Harbor and Madigan Army Medical Center, to deploy MHS GENESIS in 2017.
| Date Taken: | 08.30.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 08.31.2018 09:48 |
| Story ID: | 291123 |
| Location: | BREMERTON , WA, US |
| Web Views: | 356 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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