Taking Care with Smart Cards

Memorial Hospital of North Conway, New Hampshire strives for excellence in care, and grapples with hard economic realities. Memorial prides itself on the finest patient care, which begins at the point of Admissions. Similarly, the complex and lengthy billing and insurance claims process starts at the Admissions Desk as well. CardLogix and partner SMART Association found a way to make both processes better with smart card technology. The LifeMed® Electronic Health Record Card combines a CardLogix smart card with SMART Association’s integration expertise to produce an Electronic Health Record (EHR) that admits patients and is key to their care in the hospital.

A Smarter Way to Care and Bill

When a patient is admitted, the LifeMed smart card is loaded with all patient data, including diagnosis and expected treatment. It also securely stores the patient’s medical history, medications taken, and providers they currently visit. Without paper, patient registration is streamlined, taking, on average, just three minutes. Insurance eligibility is also established and instantly integrated into Accounts Receivable generation.

The LifeMed card then travels with the patient as a mobile and secure EHR, updated constantly via terminals throughout the hospital. Every step in patient care is contained within the card, creating a powerful, secure and single source to share information, improve quality of care, and maintain patient safety. The Lifemed card is:

  • A secure record that can’t be misused, containing data that is protected with advanced encryption
  • A single, unified source of patient data (history and allergies). The card also contains related patient information, such as non-hospital providers

Legacy Systems Enhanced

Lawrence Carbonaro, Director of Purchasing and Patient Access at Memorial, says that the LifeMed patient smart card and software has enabled the hospital to maintain a zero-tolerance policy regarding patient record errors, while at the same time improving their business efficiency. “The card integrates essential, yet disparate, data systems within Memorial to connect records, share data, and update data on a real time basis”. Carbonaro adds that rather than disrupt and replace legacy systems, the LifeMed solution improves them by helping them work together, saving money and redundant effort. “We are able to leverage and augment our existing systems with the LifeMed platform, while generating an ROI inside of one year.”

Case Study Results

Since implementing LifeMed, Memorial Hospital has realized the following results:

  • Duplicate medical records and record errors were reduced from 7% to less than 1%.
  • Admissions went paperless and wait time has dropped from 18 – 25 minutes, to less than 3 minutes
  • Press Ganey patient satisfaction increased 10% within 60 days
  • Administrative FTE’s (Full Time Equivalent) went from 21 to 16
  • Insurance receivable wait time went from 55 days to 42 days

Caring for patients is a business and a calling for Memorial Hospital of North Conway, New Hampshire. CardLogix and SMART Association helped Memorial find a way to improve the patient experience and make their care better – while keeping an eye on the bottom line.

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