Summit Healthcare Scripting Toolkits Aids the Conversion Process at Valley Presbyterian Hospital

The Challenge:

Built in 1958, Valley Presbyterian Hospital is the largest acute care hospital in central San Fernando Valley. The 350-bed facility offers leading-edge technology and medical expertise in maternal and child health, cardiac care, orthopedics, and critical care services. Valley Presbyterian Hospital has physicians in every specialty and sub-specialty in the field of medicine.

Valley Presbyterian Hospital was facing a migration to MEDITECH which meant there was a variety of data that needed to be converted in a timely yet cost effective way. Valley Presbyterian Hospital knew that converting to a new application would require thoughtful planning and that the conversion process itself would include numerous tasks that would consume a great deal of resource time; pre, during and post conversion. They also knew from experience that in order to squeeze in a conversion project into their already overflowing day to day operations, they needed to find a way to gain efficiencies wherever possible. The scope of their conversion project included not only the process of the converting the data itself (extraction, mapping, etc), but the much lamented task of data entry into the new application, followed by rigorous testing, and validation (QA). As they planned their milestones, the hospital quickly identified a staggering amount of data entry that would take a huge bite out of their timelines – not to mention their budget. The data entry workload was comprised of a combination of dictionaries and actual patient or facility information that needed to be fed into the new application. Valley Presbyterian quickly realized that in order to conquer these time-consuming tasks efficiently, they needed to contract out the simplistic data entry items to an outsourcing or temp agency in conjunction with leveraging a scripting automation tool.

The Solution:

After completing their assessment of all available options, Valley Presbyterian decided to augment their process even further by leveraging a proven scripting automation tool to automate all the data into their new application where it made sense to do so. The hospital chose the Summit Scripting Toolkit (SST) for many reasons, but the primary factors included:

• Most Cost Effective Solution
• An Easy to Use, and Reliable Script Application
• Fast, Accurate Data Entry into the Application
• A Means to Eliminate Data Entry Errors
• A Means to Meet Implementation Timelines (Time and Resource Savings)

An additional factor when choosing the Summit Scripting Toolkit was the fact that Valley Presbyterian could leverage the technology elsewhere in their organization – totally apart from the conversion process – tipped the scales in favor of using a scripting solution. They easily identified where SST could provide a cost effective means to automate redundant tasks in a multitude of ways throughout their infrastructure. SST could be used in departments like billing, registration, clinical areas – the list went on and could connect to virtually any system, including the most complex and propriety Windows or Web applications.

But before they moved on to optimizing other areas; SST’s first priority was to enable Valley Presbyterian to gain efficiencies in their conversion process by automating data entry into their new application quickly while maintaining their data integrity between environments – all without pesky data entry errors.

What were some common uses of the Summit Scripting Toolkit during the conversion?

Below are some specific areas where scripting can make a huge different in a conversion project. Keep in mind that wherever the term “dictionary” is used it can also be interpreted as a “master file” this entirely depends on what HCIS nomenclature is used to identify these building blocks of data structure. Common areas include:

• Billing Charge Master
• Billing Comments
• General Leger
• Admission
• Provider Dictionary
• Radiology Visits
• Lag Week Scripts (parallel processing between applications)
• Any Dictionary or Excel File Upload
• Post Conversion QA & Issue Resolution

Also note that some smaller volume conversion data can be scripted into a new system, thus eliminating the need to purchase upload routines from your HCIS vendor.

Breaking down the Solution at Valley Presbyterian:

Let’s focus on a few of the key areas (or events) and discuss where Valley Presbyterian was able to save valuable time and money during their conversion to MEDITECH. In general, SST is an excellent resource for conversion users. It can be employed to load and manipulate dictionary values while they are being perfected before a facility goes Live with their new system and even post live to correct any needed changes in production.

1. Billing (Charge Master) Dictionary
   Many times, due to a multitude of reasons, dictionary values have to be updated, modified, or deleted during the conversion process. This is where Valley Presbyterian took full advantage of SST’s capabilities and utilized it to build and update their Charge Master Dictionary in the Test and Live environments. Many of Valley Presbyterian’s older procedure codes were needed when converting to their new system in order to populate older account detailed information. These procedures were required to be active in their new MEDITECH system during the conversion process, but critical to be inactive after going live so the staff would not use these older procedures on new MEDITECH accounts. SST allowed for the users to create a script to update the Charge Master Items identified, and set the value of these items to Active during the conversion entry routines. Post live, the script was run again with one small update to inactivate the Charge Master Items so they could not be utilized in the future.
    
2. Provider Dictionary
   Keep in mind, that while other dictionary files may be uploaded by your HCIS vendor as a part of your conversion process, they will more often than not need some tweaking during the testing period. Valley Presbyterian found that errors found in the original vendor file could be corrected via a script rather quickly by SST. One such dictionary this process had been applied to is the Provider Dictionary. Valley Presbyterian needed updates to provider staff, admitting privileges, and doctor name fields in their Provider Dictionary. They used SST to quickly update only the necessary fields in the Provider dictionary, thereby saving time and avoiding additional fees by their vendor to upload the entire dictionary.
    
3. Lag Week or Parallel Run
   Valley Presbyterian made the most of SST by using scripting for many of the follow up tasks users need to perform during as well as post conversion. When uploading the conversion data, it is common for hospitals to continue with their current system until all the data ready for production is on the new system. This time is also referred to as the lag time or “Lag Week” - some also call it a “Parallel Run” for admission data entry. Specifically for admission, users will have new and existing patients admitted or new data entered into their current system. SST can assist you in uploading this data to your new system while you are still utilizing your current system and helps in avoiding the manual re-keying of such data into the new application. Many of the Summit Healthcare clients including Valley Presbyterian, Shore Health, and Stamford Health have used SST to run a script for their “Lag Week” when converting to MEDITECH. An SST constructed script can overcome two major hurdles; one being the automated entry of new patient demographics and two, entering admission data for existing patients in the new application. Thus, this process eliminates the manual keying of data which could take many hours and/or days by several users and abolishes the possibilities of human keying errors.
    
4. Post Conversion Cleanup
   With extensive planning, thorough validation, and probably a good bit of finger crossing for good luck; everyone hopes to experience a flaw-free conversion process. However, there are usually one or two issues you come across post conversion where SST can assist in correcting minor flaws that slip thru the cracks.

Conclusion:

SST has been used effectively in over 250 conversion projects to date, and has saved the day for many Summit Healthcare clients who were converting to a new HCIS system.

If you are in the process of selecting a vendor for your new application or currently executing a conversion, consider how the Summit Scripting Toolkit can assist you and your staff to make the process much smoother. SST is “just what the doctor ordered” and is sure to save your facility valuable time and money, and help you and your team avoid a few headaches along the sometimes bumpy road of conversion.