athenaClinicals saves practices from handling over 11,000 documents in June
In a busy medical practice, you and your staff process truckloads of paper every day. How much time does this take away from other important activities, such as seeing patients?
While we're currently assessing how much time this translates into every day, we do know how many documents we've processed on behalf of our athenaClinicals clients. In June, athenahealth handled a staggering 11,879 documents on behalf of three athenaClinicals clients (with a total of seven providers). That averages 77-100 documents per provider per day that we handled and processed - so the provider only needs to check the athenaClinicals 'provider inbox' to see all results, requests, prescriptions and other items organized for follow-up. Seem like a headache resolved to you?
Here's how it breaks down (imagine seeing this in your own practice!):
Documents processed by athenahealth for athenaClinicals clients (June 2006)
| Type of document | Number processed by athenahealth | Percent of documents processed |
|---|---|---|
| Lab results | 4525 (1076 received electronically) |
38% |
| Encounter forms | 2283 | 19% |
| Administration documents (e.g., medical records requests, referrals, authorizations and forms) |
1857 | 16% |
| Clinical documents (e.g., consult notes, diagnostic tests, hospital discharge summaries) |
1515 | 13% |
| Prescription renewals | 700 (160 received electronically) |
6% |
| Imaging results | 575 | 5% |
| Other documents (e.g., physician authorizations, vaccination records) |
424 | 3% |
| Total | 11,879 | 100% |
Once installed, athenaClinicals stops all paper coming to the office and routes it through athenahealth. athenahealth employees categorize and post data to the electronic 'provider inbox' for review, approval, and follow-up. So the day a practice goes live with athenaClinicals is the day they've seen their last fax, filed the last chart, and phoned in their last order.
With these kind of problems solved (and this kind of time freed up!), we're not surprised that demand for athenaClinicals continues to grow. An additional five Beta clients in internal medicine, family medicine, and pediatrics (representing 30 providers) have begun implementation of athenaClinicals. Our first OB/GYN practice will kick off implementation with athenaClinicals at the end of this month.
If you'd like more information about athenaClinicals, please e-mail athenaclinicals@athenahealth.com.