The Paperless Hospital -- Really!

Computerworld - Less than two years ago, cows grazed on the Jacksonville, Fla., site of Baptist Medical Center South (BMCS). Today, physicians at the brand-new hospital make their rounds toting wireless devices to check lab results, view X-rays, update charts, order prescriptions and send and receive e-mail.
At bedsides, nurses use wireless devices on wheels, or WOWs, to record progress notes and check doctors' orders. If they administer medicine or change a bandage, the supplies they use are electronically tracked and matched by bar code to individual patient records, enabling more accurate patient billing and automatic inventory replenishment.
What's conspicuously absent everywhere is paper. And for a busy hospital whose staff has just a few weeks of experience working in a totally electronic environment, the overall atmosphere is strikingly tranquil. The doctors and nurses seem completely confident and competent in their new digital workplace.
Yet digital by no means equals impersonal. Original artwork graces the walls, waiting rooms have the cozy feel of a private library, and lots of windows look out on the hospital's well-tended gardens.
You have to wonder: How did this small, 92-bed community hospital manage to succeed where larger and more prestigious hospitals have failed?
For example, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles pulled the plug on its $34 million electronic medical record (EMR) system after just three months in 2002 because staffers refused to use it. Nationwide, only about 6% of hospitals have computerized systems for doctors' orders.
"It's all about changing the culture," says BMCS CIO Roland Garcia.
Seize the Day

Chief Medical Officer Keith Stein and CIO Roland Garcia of BMCS Image Credit: Gene Bednarek/Silver Image