Microsoft Customer SolutionHealthcare Industry Case Study

Hospital Offers Advanced Online Patient Services Through Healthcare Portal

OverviewCountry or Region: United StatesIndustry: Healthcare

Customer ProfileMason General Hospital & Family of Clinics (MGH&FC) in Shelton, Washington, is a full-service public medical facility. MGH&FC and its eight satellite clinics have 600 employees and 100 doctors representing more than 20 specialties.

Business SituationMGH&FC wanted to give patients easier access to their visit summaries and medical histories and to engage patients, families, and referring physicians in more-coordinated ongoing care.

SolutionTo better connect with its patient community, MGH&FC used Microsoft HealthVault Community Connect to build a web portal through which patients can view their information and, soon, share it with other caregivers.

Benefits Improves patient experience and

coordination of care Increases organizational efficiency Supports future enhancements with

minimal risk

“Community Connect offers a rare, exciting opportunity where we can do only good by embracing it—improving operational efficiency, patient experience, and healthcare outcomes, all at the same time.”

Eric Moll, Chief Administrative Officer, Mason General Hospital & Family of Clinics

Mason General Hospital & Family of Clinics (MGH&FC) wanted to expand patients’ access to their health information and improve coordination of care. To address these issues, MGH&FC deployed MyMasonHealth, a web portal built on Microsoft HealthVault Community Connect. Patients can now easily access their visit summaries and medical histories anytime online. MGH&FC will soon support information exchange with Microsoft HealthVault accounts, which will, in turn, facilitate the sharing of medical information with other caregivers and help to streamline chronic-disease management—saving up to 20 hours a week for some MGH&FC nursing staff. The portal solution will also reduce costs for web administration and for producing discharge summaries, and it will easily scale to support new technology deployments.

SituationMason General Hospital & Family of Clinics (MGH&FC) is a critical access facility that, along with eight satellite clinics, is part of Washington State’s Public Hospital District No. 1 of Mason County. Despite its relatively small size and rural location, MGH&FC prides itself on keeping up with and using advanced technology to better serve its patients. In fact, it is one of the “Most Wired” hospitals in the nation, as ranked by Hospitals & Health Networks, the journal of the American Hospital Association.

In early 2010, MGH&FC was looking at the changing healthcare industry and considering how it should adapt accordingly. “With what’s happening in terms of Health Care Reform and Meaningful Use, we need to view healthcare and patients’ healthcare information in new ways,” says Eric Moll, Chief Administrative Officer at Mason General Hospital & Family of Clinics. (Meaningful Use is a set of evolving Federal health technology regulations that seeks to improve the exchange of information among healthcare providers.) “Traditional treatment approaches with limited follow-up don’t allow patients to become sufficiently engaged and absorb all the information they’re given—it’s not enough of a conversation to truly help improve health outcomes. We wanted to keep patients engaged in their own care, even after they leave one of our facilities, and to make healthcare more convenient for them, resulting in a better patient experience.”

As a simple example of this big-picture issue, Moll says that in the past, it has been cumbersome for patients to get medical

records after they leave the hospital. “They have to physically return to the hospital, find the Medical Records Department, fill out forms, and wait for staff to find the records and charts and make copies,” he says. “It’s inconvenient for them, and it consumes valuable staff time on our side.” Of course, patients need this information to keep their referring physicians and other providers up-to-date, especially patients with chronic conditions who will likely need ongoing follow-up care.

Similarly, patients who receive specialized treatment outside the MGH&FC network would benefit from a more convenient way to share that information with MGH&FC clinics when they return. Also, the majority of MGH&FC patients have problems connected to diet and lifestyle issues, such as heart disease and obesity, and MGH&FC wanted to make sure they receive proper education and strategies to better manage these conditions.

MGH&FC believed that distributing health information to patients through the Internet would be an important step in achieving the hospital’s goals, but this posed security, regulatory, and logistical challenges. For example, MGH&FC has many electronic healthcare systems, including ones from Meditech, GE Centricity, and Orion, as well as specialty systems and customized internal workflows.

The hospital sought a solution that would help bring together relevant patient information from these disparate systems in a convenient electronic form. MGH&FC also sought to expand patients’ access to, and usage of, their health information, and

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“Our MyMasonHealth portal solution may save patients up to four hours, compared with in-person requests for printed records.”

Eric Moll, Chief Administrative Officer, Mason General Hospital & Family of

Clinics

to support Meaningful Use requirements and improve coordination of care.

SolutionTo address these issues, MGH&FC created MyMasonHealth, a website through which MGH&FC patients and their families can access information related to their hospital visits, including medical histories, and preregister for hospital admission. MyMasonHealth is built on Microsoft HealthVault Community Connect, a portal solution that gives healthcare organizations, patients, and referring providers a place to connect and share health information before and after treatment.

Community Connect uses a limited version of the Microsoft Amalga software for healthcare to aggregate health information stored in separate MGH&FC systems. It displays the data by using customizable templates based on Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010. Community Connect also exchanges information with Microsoft HealthVault, a free* online health platform that patients can use to store their health information, including data uploaded directly from health applications, pharmacies, and compatible electronic health devices, such as blood pressure and glucose monitors.

MGH&FC chose Community Connect based on a recommendation from Tectura, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network and worldwide provider of IT consulting

* Access to and use of the Internet may require payment of a separate fee to an Internet service provider. Local and/or long-distance telephone charges may apply.

services. “MGH&FC told us it wanted to meet patients’ expectations for a rich view of their healthcare and to build better referral-physician loyalty,” explains Mark Clawson, Program Manager for Health Solutions at Tectura. “When we told MGH&FC there was a solution— HealthVault Community Connect—designed specifically for that strategy, the hospital was very interested and soon became an enthusiastic participant in the solution’s Early Adopter Program. Also, Community Connect can easily integrate with several different Health IT systems and does not require a rip-and-replace approach, so MGH&FC would gain added-value while preserving its investment in existing IT systems.”

“I had already done research on other health portals,” adds Tom Hornburg, Director of Information Systems at Mason General Hospital & Family of Clinics. “None of them matched the ability of Community Connect to cost-effectively scale to meet our growth timeline and to flexibly work with the data from our many different healthcare IT systems. These advantages played a huge role in our decision to adopt it. Another factor was that Community Connect supports key requirements of Meaningful Use and Health Care Reform.”

In late 2010, Microsoft began helping MGH&FC with the initial installation and setup of Community Connect. This phase ended in December 2010, followed by testing for three months. Toward the end of the project, ongoing operational support was transitioned to Tectura.

The MyMasonHealth portal went live on March 18, 2011. For now, patients can only

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“Using the support for HealthVault that Community Connect provides, we estimate we can save up to 20 hours a week per employee who helps patients with diabetes management alone.”

Eric Moll, Chief Administrative Officer, Mason General Hospital & Family of

Clinics

access their health information and preregister for visits. In the near future, MGH&FC will make comprehensive discharge instructions, medication information, lab results, and explanations available through MyMasonHealth. This will create a more complete continuity of care document (CCD) that patients can view through the portal or copy to their HealthVault accounts. MGH&FC will also support selected HealthVault applications that help patients better manage specific conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease.

Jennifer Capps, Chief Development Officer at Mason General Hospital & Family of Clinics, says, “Using Community Connect is an example of how Mason General Hospital is providing cutting-edge technology to promote health and wellness in our community, even though we’re a relatively small hospital in a rural area. In this case, we’re further along the technology path than many larger organizations. This really puts us on the map.”

BenefitsBy deploying its MyMasonHealth portal using Microsoft HealthVault Community Connect, Mason General Hospital is already improving the patient experience with easier information access. With upcoming enhancements, MGH&FC will soon be able to improve coordination of care and help patients better manage their health—all while increasing employee productivity and reducing costs.

Improves Patient Experience and Coordination of CareBy using MyMasonHealth, patients have immediate online access to information

related to their hospital visits. “Our MyMasonHealth portal solution may save patients up to four hours, compared with in-person requests for printed records,” says Moll. “As we move to a business paradigm that asks, ‘What’s the value that we’re creating for patients?’ timesaving services like this will be essential.”

Moll sees this value increasing as the solution’s CCD and information-sharing capabilities expand in the near future, which will greatly help the hospital, referring doctor, and other providers coordinate the patient’s care. For example, “A patient can come here for a diagnostic test, access the results at home within three business days, and see them along with other stored health information—not just in MyMasonHealth, but also in his or her HealthVault account—and then share the information with physicians and caregivers outside of MGH&FC. That adds a lot of value for patients, increases their satisfaction, and helps maintain patient and referring-physician loyalty. It also gives us an advantage over other healthcare organizations that are not yet deploying these services.” For example, diabetic patients enrolled in the hospital’s Diabetic Wellness program can effectively communicate daily blood sugar levels through HealthVault and receive insulin adjustments electronically, if necessary. This avoids potential miscommunication for patients with hearing difficulty or who miss their phone message.

Increases Organizational EfficiencyAlthough serving patients better was the primary motivation for MyMasonHealth, the solution offers labor and cost efficiencies, as well. For example, the

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“Being able to link disparate healthcare systems through Community Connect creates ‘information economies of scale’ so that the benefits of deploying a process or technology in one facility accrues to our other sites.”

Eric Moll, Chief Administrative Officer, Mason General Hospital & Family of

Clinics

timesaving benefits that patients enjoy by not having to request printed records also translates into lower costs for MGH&FC. The hospital estimates that it will eventually save about U.S.$12,500 on the 250 hundred discharge summaries it prints per year, which is the cost of labor, supplies, and maintenance required for printing and copying.

Additionally, MGH&FC will soon take advantage of HealthVault applications and patients’ HealthVault-compatible devices to increase the productivity of its “Patient Navigator” employees—the nurses, nutritionists, and other staff who have traditionally connected with patients by telephone to help them better manage aftercare and chronic diseases. “Rather than having Patient Navigators make 20 to 30 phone calls a day to ask patients about their glucose levels, for example, that information can be accessed from a HealthVault account, if the patient wishes and has uploaded the data,” says Moll. “Using the support for HealthVault that Community Connect provides, we estimate we can save up to 20 hours a week per employee who helps patients with diabetes management alone. That means the employees will gain half a work week to perform more value-added types of services.” MGH&FC will support similar HealthVault applications for other conditions, such as heart disease and cancer. Moll adds, “This is a great example of how we’re finding ways to keep patients engaged day-to-day for better care, and to do it more efficiently.”

Finally, the IT department can leverage Community Connect to save costs on IT administration. “The web capabilities in

SharePoint Server that support the MyMasonHealth portal can also drive our external website, www.masongeneral.com,” says Hornburg. “Running the same software on the same server for both sites will help us use our public funds more efficiently.” MGH&FC plans to move its external site to SharePoint Server later this year, saving an estimated $20,000 annually.

Supports Future Enhancements with Minimal RiskMGH&FC sees HealthVault Community Connect playing an essential role in facilitating the deployment of new healthcare systems in the future, based on the success the solution has already demonstrated. Specifically, MGH&FC has opened six clinics in the last two years, and they use a variety of medical record systems. However, by using the Amalga technology in Community Connect, MGH&FC was able to easily route the information in all these systems into MyMasonHealth.

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“Healthcare organizations are often reluctant to adopt new technology because of the risk of the unknown—that’s why we call it ‘bleeding edge’ technology. However, with Community Connect, we see very little or no downside risk, only upside gain.”

Eric Moll, Chief Administrative Officer, Mason General Hospital & Family of

Clinics

“Being able to link disparate healthcare systems through Community Connect creates ‘information economies of scale’ so that the benefits of deploying a process or technology in one facility accrues to our other sites,” says Moll. “If we build a scheduling process at a clinic, for example, we can roll it out everywhere—there’s a one-time cost, but it scales across the entire MGH&FC organization. That will make our future enhancement projects much more cost-effective.”

Moll concludes, “Healthcare organizations are often reluctant to adopt new technology because of the risk of the unknown—that’s why we call it ‘bleeding edge’ technology. However, with Community Connect, we see very little or no downside risk, only upside gain. Community Connect offers a rare, exciting opportunity where we can do only good by embracing it—improving operational efficiency, patient experience, and healthcare outcomes, all at the same time.”Microsoft Solutions for the Healthcare IndustryHealthcare and life sciences organizations are under tremendous pressure to meet regulatory requirements, improve patient care, and reduce the time it takes to develop drugs and take them to market. To meet this challenge, Microsoft and its partners have developed cost-effective solutions that enable healthcare organizations to streamline and automate daily processes that improve productivity

and deliver information whenever and wherever it is needed. The result is enhanced productivity, safety, and quality. 

For more information about Microsoft solutions for the healthcare industry, go to:www.microsoft.com/healthcare

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For More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Tectura products and services, call (650) 235-1925 or visit the website at: www.tectura.com

For more information about Mason General Hospital & Family of Clinics products and services, call (360) 426-1611 or visit the website at: www.masongeneral.com

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published June 2011

Software and Services Microsoft Amalga Microsoft HealthVault− Microsoft HealthVault Community

Connect

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

Partners Tectura