HealthPoint Rehab Chooses Chart Links as its Electronic Medical Record
HealthPoint Rehab, a service of Southeast Missouri Hospital, comprises two outpatient rehabilitation centers located in Cape Girardeau and Jackson, Missouri. Combined, the centers employ 25 therapists engaged in physical, occupational, speech and specialty therapies including orthopedic, neurological, myofascial and lymphedema. The two centers handle about 33,600 total patient visits annually.

An EMR Built for Rehabilitation
Realizing the inexorable trend toward electronic medical records, the HealthPoint management team decided to abandon its paper-based system and make a comprehensive search for an advanced electronic solution.

"We knew the need for EMR was coming," said Andrea Marchi, PT, MBA, CSCS,  HealthPoint rehab manager. "We wanted to get ahead of the curve and have plenty of time to make the right decision. That's when we began a search that led us to Chart Links – a choice we couldn't be happier with."

Chart Links offered a product customizable to HealthPoint's suite of multi-discipline therapeutic services. "We needed a system that could effectively address and document our many different specialty areas and Chart Links was the only one that had this capability."

A Compliant Documentation Process
Chart Links Rehabilitation Software is driven by major accreditation, professional, information technology and security standards. It supports compliance with JCAHO, CARF, AOTA, APTA, HIPAA and other rehabilitation professional standards. The system's documentation helps ensure compliance with Medicare Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) Edits, modifiers and time tracking. 

Marchi feels more at ease with proper documentation compliance. "Our compliance is virtually guaranteed because, in a progress note or evaluation section, Chart Links prompts for JCAHO and Medicare documentation in a way that you cannot miss or ignore."  Unlike paper forms unable to force standards compliance, Chart Links' electronic forms do not accept signatures without fulfillment of all required standards.

Better Business Decisions with Analytics
Chart Links Analytics allows managers to make informed business decisions through a simple-to-use ad hoc analysis interface that can analyze practice trends, develop universal metrics, measure long-term changes, and gather operational decision-support data.

"What could be a monumental task, taking weeks to accomplish by having to manually track and assemble mountains of data now is as simple as jumping into the system, defining your parameters and – click – up comes the data," said Marchi.  "It's easy to read and understand. You don't need any assistance from IT to make this happen. Chart Links Analytics is simply awesome."

HealthPoint uses Chart Links Analytics for generating statistics for its annual report and  as a basis to make good business decisions. Analytics allows HealthPoint, for example, to analyze visits (by location, by therapist, by time-period, etc.), dissect referrals, or scrutinize cancellation rates.  "Chart Links Analytics helps us to stay ahead of the game, so we can make better decisions and not be reactive to what has already happened," observed Marchi.

Routine Tasks Greatly Improved
HealthPoint used to spend a significant amount of time physically tracking patients' charts. "Previously, with our paper-based system, you never knew where a patient's chart might be located," said Marchi. "Four or five staff members could easily be handling a particular chart in one day. With Chart Links, anyone, anytime can get into the system and see what they need to see, when they need to see it. This has been a huge time savings for us."

Marchi also cites the user-friendly Chart Links scheduler as a key benefit. She notes that you can see all you need to see on one screen. Users can sort information by discipline or selected providers, or take a patient and click and copy for 15 visits instead of making 15 individual appointments. "The front desk has nothing but good things to say about the Chart Links scheduler," remarked Marchi.

Chart Links Customer Service as Outstanding as its Technology
HealthPoint has found that the Chart Links solution extends into exceptional customer service. "The customer service we have received has been fantastic," said Marchi. "There was no sense that, once we went live, 'you're on your own.' Chart Links doesn't operate that way. They don't put limits on customer service. We feel we can call on them anytime. Chart Links consistently delivers on all counts."