Mississippi hospital implements IT to help control costs
Memorial Hospital at Gulfport has deployed new IT solutions designed to help manage patient costs and improve care.
The Gulfport, Miss.-based, 445-bed hospital will be implementing electronic health record, patient management and revenue cycle management solutions developed by Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions of Chicago.
"We want to empower our physicians by giving them the tools they need to run their clinics more effectively and drive greater patient satisfaction," said Richard Ferrans, the hospital's vice president and medical information officer. "From a business perspective, this lets us take 30 different clinics and put them all on a common business platform for scheduling, workflow and billing, and that will really help the clinics run more efficiently."
Hospital officials said physicians will be provided with new practice management and revenue cycle management solutions to help control the cost of care.
Ferrans said he is looking forward to connecting the new IT solutions with the Mississippi Coastal Health Information Exchange, a state program dedicated to building healthcare infrastructure and enhancing care to those who were affected by Hurricane Katrina in August 2005.
“We believe it's critical to connect our community of physicians to the HIE to enhance the overall continuity of care, reduce costs and ensure that up-to-date information is securely available to share between all providers on the coast," said Ferrans.
Hosptial officials said the HIE will aggregate and allow access to patient information from physicianss offices, hospitals and other care sites 24 hours a day.
