The Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (MGPO) and IKS Health, announced a new collaboration to improve healthcare delivery throughout the United States. Recognizing the national epidemic of physician burnout and the burden of technology, legislation, and reimbursement changes affecting the crucial relationship between patients and providers, the partnership will focus on building innovative solutions that address the needs of clinicians today. As part of the collaboration, key clinical leaders from MGPO will identify common challenges negatively affecting ambulatory care, and this team will collaborate with the leading physicians at IKS who have clinical expertise and resources to develop and execute physician enablement solutions.
The organizations’ shared history has set the strong foundation for this collaboration. In late 2015, MGPO was preparing to transfer to a new electronic health record (EHR) system from their legacy platform. Concerned about migrating patient data in an accurate and timely manner, and the impact that a poor data transfer could have on patient safety and physician satisfaction, MGPO approached IKS for assistance in migrating data from the legacy EHR to the new system. This effort saved MGPO more than 30,000 physician hours by having IKS review more than 300,000 patient records with an error rate of less than 0.5 percent. The MGPO experienced no downtime during the migration. By contrast, another organization in the region using its own physicians and nurses to transfer patient data had decreased patient access for more than seven months after the switch, affecting patients and physicians alike.
After the success of the medication transfer project, MGPO worked with IKS for additional services to further reduce the administrative burden on MGPO physicians and enhance patient care. Scribble, an asynchronous virtual scribing service, uses virtual clinical talent to create accurate, complete, and structured clinical notes enabling physicians to focus on the patient during the exam and reducing the time required for clinical documentation. MGPO and IKS have also collaborated to develop a centralized prescription renewal service, under which all prescription refills are handled by a remote team that follows safe and secure clinical protocols developed by MGPO. In addition, MGPO and IKS work together on coding and revenue cycle services.
As the organizations continue to successfully change the way care is delivered and received, the tools, practices, and insights will be shared and available for health systems nationwide.
