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News release
05/24/2006
Hornell Fire Department Getting Hang of New [Ortivus] System
Software allows patient information to be entered on ambulances, paperwork reduced
(Reprinted with permission of The Evening Tribune, Hornell, NY Area)
by Rob Montana, Staff Writer
HORNELL - An effort to cut down on paperwork, while improving ambulance billing, is working out for the City of Hornell. A new software system has been in use for the past couple months, where patient care information is electronically entered on board ambulances and automatically sent to the billing computer at City Hall.
"It appears to be a high quality system, and it seems to be working quite well," Fire Chief Vince Kelly said.
City account clerk Peggy Lynch oversees the billing effort at City Hall and said it is much easier for employees to get the billing done. Previously, they would have entered the information into the computer using hand-written paper reports. Now it is sent to the system automatically, eliminating the need for data entry.
"We asked the company two years ago about the possibility for use in New York state; I saw the potential," Lynch said. "They contacted us last fall and asked if we wanted to be the test company for New York State."
The city said yes, and through a $8,900 state local government records improvement grant obtained by Fire Capt. Dan Smith was able to pay for approximately $10,000 worth of equipment needed to make the new system work. Among the equipment purchased were a new desktop computer and a pair of laptops to go into the ambulances.
"The state gives those kind of grants because it likes to see improvement in record-keeping systems," Smith said. "If you can show it's an improvement, you can get a grant.
"It reduces our man hours, and it just made too much sense," he added.
Smith noted Lynch is a key cog in the process, adding she was the liaison between the city and software company - Ortivus - and is the one who makes the system work.
"As far as the nuts and bolts of it, she's the one," he said. "It's well-received here; it's going to increase patient care and it's reduced a lot of paperwork."
Before the new system came into being, Smith said firefighters would have to fill out patient care reports on triplicate forms supplied by the state. One copy was kept for the fire department records, he said, the others went to City Hall for billing purposes and the state for its records. That system was "pretty labor intensive," Smith said, adding the new process is much smoother.
"Now the paramedic in the field, once he enters the data into the laptop, gets sent to all the end users - the state Department of Health, our billing agency, the hospital - and the fire chief can glean any information he needs off it," he said. "It allows the Department of Health to get the information in a timely manner, and it allows us to bill insurance companies in a timely manner."
"Instead of days and weeks, we can do it in hours," Smith added. "It increases the reimbursement response, and it reduces the replication of work."
The system also helps firefighters when they get recertified as paramedics, Smith said, because the information can be produced on which procedures each one has done. He also likes the fact that patient information is available on the laptop.
While Smith credits Lynch, she gives a lot of the kudos to the firefighters for the work they put in to getting the system up and running. In addition to extra training, they also had to continue to fill out the paper reports for a while before they could stop, she said.
"It was a state requirement they had to do both, so for a month they entered it into the computer and filled out the forms," Lynch said.
"It's paying off because collection rates are way up, and that's because the guys have gone above and beyond," she added. "It was three months of a lot of back and forth to get it approved and where it needs to be."
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About Ortivus:
Ortivus offers integrated software solutions for Emergency Medical Services and Public Safety. The North American Subsidiary develops and markets the following pre-hospital applications: EMS billing, patient care reporting, computer-aided dispatch, automatic vehicle location, mobile data application, and patient vital signs monitoring and data transmission.
The Ortivus vision is to be the customer’s preferred provider of integrated information and decision-making software support systems in the Emergency Medical Service, Public Safety and Healthcare industries.
Ortivus operates out of two North American corporate office locations (Decorah, Iowa, US and Montreal, Quebec, Canada), as well as several international locations (Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Great Britain).