An eHealth Solution
Overview
Metro OBGYN is an independent obstetric and gynecology practice providing
services for women in all stages of life. With seven physicians and two nurse
practitioners, Metro OBGYN operates out of multiple offices in the Twin Cities
area, and has affi liated hospitals that refer their patients to Metro OBGYN. In
spite of the struggling economy, Metro OBGYN has recently opened a new office in Woodbury, and has plans of adding another physician in the next year.
The Challenge
Metro OBGYN was running an EMR application that hadn’t been updated since its implementation. “The solution may have gone forward, but Metro didn’t go with it,” said Deb Hastings, Metro OBGYN’s Project Manager for EMR and PM implementation. The clinic didn’t have an IT person that had the technical knowledge or the time necessary to make the updates that were required – so they never got done. Backups were done consistently, but were never stored off-site and were never tested for ease of recovery.
As clinic leaders began exploring other options for EMR applications, they realized that to implement a new EMR system, they would need to hire an internal IT person just to support, maintain, and update the application and hardware it required. Even with hiring an IT professional, there would still be issues with backup, security and redundancy, said Diane Murray, Clinic Administrator at Metro OBGYN. After seeing the Netgain Data Center and how secure the data was from a disaster recovery and redundancy standpoint, Metro OBGYN knew it couldn’t duplicate that model in house.
The Solution
In April 2008, Metro OBGYN switched field service providers to Solbrekk and
soon recognized the advantages of outsourcing with Netgain. “There was no
doubt that the Solbrekk-Netgain combination was the best,” Hastings said. The collective IT expertise and experience of Solbrekk and Netgain provided Metro OBGYN with a complete virtual desktop and application hosting solution that positioned the clinic for future growth.
To make the transition to EMR smooth, Murray recalls that Netgain COO Matt
Riley sat in on weekly conference calls with Metro’s team and EMR vendor,
Greenway, and helped them through the process. Without Matt’s help, Murray
said, it just would have been over their heads.
In April 2008, Metro OBGYN went live with Netgain hosting all of its applications, including PM and EMR solutions. Dr. Less said there wasn’t really any difference connecting to Netgain rather than logging into an internal system. “Everything went really smoothly,” he said.
Benefits and Results
- Ease of Growth “To be honest,” Dr. Less said, “I don’t care how IT works. I just want to treat my patients.” Dr. Less and all of the Metro OBGYN doctors now can access patient files and information from any of the clinic locations and more efficiently serve their patients. With an in-house system, IT could hinder growth because of staffing, space and hardware needs, but opening a new clinic, while supported by Netgain, has been effortless.
- Unparalleled Support When there are technology issues, Metro OBGYN can call the Netgain Helpdesk and get immediate support. “Every call I’ve made to Netgain support staff has been above and beyond what’s expected,” Hastings said.
Metro OBGYN relies on Solbrekk to provide technology support for its
hardware and devices. “Solbrekk does a great job of supporting our
local network,” Hastings said.
- Unrivaled Security and Reliability There is always a risk of hardware failure with an in-house system, then the unforeseen costs of purchasing replacement equipment, but by having Netgain as its IT department, Metro OBGYN knows the costs upfront and can budget accordingly.