When it comes to money, a CHIN can make you grin
Doing it electronically is cheaper
If your top level administrators are reluctant to venture into the brave new world of Community Health Information Networks (CHINs), there are cost savings you can point to that might have them smacking their lips.
The proof is studies of the economic impact of the Wisconsin Health Information Network (WHIN) in Brookfield. It is one of the nation’s oldest and largest CHINs, linking 14 hospitals, 1,100 physicians, seven insurance companies, eight clinics, four home health agencies, four private billing services, and three ambulance services.
"There is little doubt . . . that the economic impacts of WHIN are both real and substantial," says Kathy S. Lassila, who conducted the studies while working for University of Wisconsin School of Business Administration in Milwaukee. Savings potential range from $400,000 to $1.1 million or more per health system, depending on the volume of information responses eliminated by WHIN use, Lassila found.
On the hospital side alone, she discovered cost savings ranging from 35.6% to 80%. (For details on the savings, see summary provider chart, above.)
Integration communication
Such networks also have beneficial applications when health systems merge or acquire satellite facilities. Often when this happens, the various entities have disparate computer systems that don’t communicate well with one another, says Michael Jordan, president and general manager of WHIN.
"Integrated delivery systems, as they grow, need to be able to communicate electronically between facilities," he says. "WHIN can help them solve that compatibility problem."
That was a problem faced by Milwaukee-based Aurora Healthcare, one of Wisconsin’s largest managed care health systems with more than 100 facilities, including 14 hospitals, that blanket the eastern part of the state. "When a new facility joins our system, it isn’t feasible to say to that facility, Tomorrow you are going to turn off all of your old computer equipment and use this new hardware and software,’" says Jim Jeffery, manager of imaging systems development for Aurora, which is part owner of the WHIN network.
Instead, a new facility subscribes to WHIN, which provides the computer interface that allows the different computer systems to send and receive data. This is similar to the Internet, which allows both Macintosh and IBM-based systems to communicate.
Eventually, says Jeffery, the goal is to have the same hardware and software at all the facilities in the Aurora network. "But that is going to take time to accomplish," he says. "During that transition, WHIN is certainly proving to be a big help."
Quality of care and costs
The core of Aurora’s electronic transfer data system is its computer-based patient record. When the patient record database is complete in a few years, "an Aurora patient will be able to show up at any Aurora facility, and the medical staff at that facility, no matter where it is, will be able to get that patient’s record electronically," Jeffery says. "We won’t have to deliver the paper chart, which is both time-consuming and costly."
Aurora also is developing WHIN linkages to out-of-system facilities. The pilot project is with a pathology lab. "In the old paper days, we’d send a specimen to the lab, and then the lab would send a paper report back to the physician, which was then put into the patient’s paper record," Jeffrey explains. "Now, with the lab connected to WHIN, it delivers the reports electronically, and they go directly into the computer-based patient record."
Aurora also is working with outside pharmacies so physicians can electronically deliver prescriptions, but this is still in the developmental phase.
Networks such as WHIN would be convenient repositories for managed care information that allows providers to identify best practice patterns, says Jordan. "To succeed in a managed care environment, you need to understand the medical procedures that are taking place, and you need to analyze those to make efficient use of medical resources," he says. "I see a natural evolution where these networks become repositories for data on procedures, policies, and outcomes that will let providers figure out the most efficient steps to take to treat a condition."
Michael Jordan, President and General Manager, Wisconsin Health Information Network, 450 North Sunnyslope, Suite 90, Brookfield, WI 53005. Telephone: (414) 792-6172.
Jim Jeffery, Manager of Imaging Systems Development, Aurora Healthcare, 3031 W. Montana St., Milwaukee, WI 53215. Telephone: (414) 647-3546.
WHIN also has a web site explaining the network. The web address is www.whin.net/whin 07.htm.
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