“Once the orders are entered and signed by the physician, it immediately sends the messages to the respective areas that need to know that — whether it’s the emergency department, lab or nursing,” said Jane Maskus, LMH chief information officer. “It has automated that process.”

LMH is the first in the Topeka and Kansas City metropolitan area to fully implement CPOE and bar-coded medication administration in the emergency department, surgery department and the hospital setting.  

It was a huge step for the 225 doctors who work with LMH patients, including Dr. Eric Huerter, an internal medicine doctor at Reed Medical Group.

Before, Huerter wrote orders on paper and a unit secretary would send them to the appropriate places. Sometimes, he faxed information.

Thursday, the computer software did everything for him. The unit secretary didn’t have to worry about reading his writing or interpreting his orders, and possibly having to make a follow-up call.

As Huerter was entering a prescription, the software sent him an alert that there was a 1 percent chance his patient might have a bad reaction to the medication he was ordering. He didn’t take that chance and ordered another medication. It was the second time in three days that he had changed a prescription because of the alert.

Other doctors have had similar experiences. For example, Tylenol with codeine was ordered for one patient and the system sent an alert that the patient was allergic to codeine.

These alerts likely would have been caught by pharmacists, but they saved time and phone calls.

As soon as Huerter enters his orders, the patient’s care team has access to the information. There’s no wait.

“Everybody dreads a little bit having to go through a big workflow change, but everybody knows it’s state-of-the-art and much better for patient safety and patient care,” Huerter said.

He also can submit orders from his office across the street or from home.

“I can access the system from anywhere as long as there is wireless service,” he said.

Huerter said Reed Medical Group also has an electronic medical record system, but its system and LMH’s system are not integrated. In time, they hope to share information.

LMH has spent about 18 months preparing for this week. They created the software tools, trained the doctors and tested the system.

“It’s a major step,” Maskus said. “It’s a major transformation in their workflow. It is truly changing the way they take care of patients.”

The next step for LMH is moving its area family practice clinics and centers, like LMH South, into the electronic system. They plan to achieve this by May’s end.

HIMSS Analytics, the national benchmarking organization for electronic medical record adoption, has ranked LMH in the top 3 percent of hospitals nationwide for EMR use