ASG-Cypress: The Ideal Content Management Solution for Baylor Health Care System

Industry: Healthcare
Location: Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Baylor Health Care System is a network of hospitals, primary care physician centers and practices, rehabilitation clinics, senior health centers, affiliated ambulatory surgery centers, and the Baylor Research Institute. One of the largest private-sector employers in Dallas/Fort Worth, Baylor employs more than 15,000 people and has more than 3,000 physicians on its medical staff.

The Challenge

The challenge faced by Baylor Health Care System is not unique. It was challenged by ever-rising costs associated with printing forms, (e.g., pre-printed form stock, special printers for the form stock itself, and application of barcodes to meet patient safety initiatives - just to name a few). Content for these pre-printed forms was also difficult to modify when desired; it had to be formatted for each specific form. Changes in form layout would cause the content to print incorrectly or require the purchase of new pre-printed form stock. Furthermore, incorrect positioning of form stock in printers rendered the forms unusable. Baylor Medical Center at Garland, one of the system's health care facilities, was spending up to $90,000 per year to purchase this form stock.

Baylor Health Care System also faced requirements to provide new functionality within its hospitals so it could better serve its customers. One of these requirements was to provide information to its multiple locations more quickly and efficiently using less expensive methods. At the time, certain reports were distributed to Baylor's various locations using a manual method of two vans and two employees.

To reduce costs and provide more timely information using a less expensive method, Baylor had implemented a content management solution. That implementation, however, encountered severe difficulties. After approximately one year, the content management solution was not operating in a production environment.

ASG Solution

After extensive research, Baylor Health Care System invited the ASG-Cypress team to conduct an on-site Proof of Concept. By noon on the first day, the ASG-Cypress team had completed the tasks associated with the Proof of Concept and the full ASG-Cypress system was running in a production environment within two months.

Among other tasks, the implementation of ASG-Cypress addressed the challenge of using expensive pre-printed forms. Rather than having to create content to fit the pre-printed form stock, the forms are created in Visio® (or any other authoring tool). At print time, the content is electronically merged with the online form, ensuring that the content and form match perfectly. This allows the forms to be printed on any local printer, rather than only those specified as ''form printers.'' Furthermore, these forms can now be printed with patient-specific information embedded in a barcode to comply with patient safety initiatives, and in some cases also include pre-populated supplemental forms (such as HIPAA and Medicare consent forms) to aid in the system's HIPAA compliance efforts. This flexibility completely eliminates the added burden of manually assembling form packages.

Measurable Results

As a result of the implementation of ASG-Cypress, Baylor Health Care System has significantly reduced its costs associated with ''forms.'' Not only is specific form stock no longer required, but the printers associated with this form stock can be re-purposed. Other associated costs, such as maintenance contracts and ink cartridges, have been eliminated or significantly reduced. In addition, the organization was able to replace older, more troublesome printers with newer and more reliable models, thus reducing overall printer downtime.

The ''manual distribution'' method has also been eliminated, as information is automatically delivered to more than 1,600 employees across the entire health care system. As a result of these efficiencies, the vans and employees used in the manual distribution method have been reallocated to more productive activities.

The use of ASG-Cypress, specifically its External Application Preprocessing Facility (EAPF), has also made a significant impact on the admissions department. At the time a patient checks in and specific treatment codes are entered into the system, ASG-Cypress automatically ''gathers'' all relevant documentation, such as HIPAA consent forms and face sheets, and is able to distinguish what is required for an inpatient or an outpatient admissions packet. Furthermore, ASG-Cypress generates the patient wristband, complete with barcode.

Baylor Health Care System estimates it is saving a minimum of $480,000 per year due to its implementation of ASG-Cypress.