Pivoting to Flexible, Remotely Hosted EHR

Background and Challenge

Soon after making plans to implement a new MEDITECH Expanse EHR, Val Verde Regional Medical Center (VVRMC) leaders realized that they did not have sufficient internal resources, personnel or expertise to successfully execute the implementation in an on-premises environment. Their community hospital in Del Rio, Texas needed a remote hosting partner who could help manage a wide range of experience and knowledge levels plus significant resistance to change. Many end-users had raised concerns about the location of data and the speed at which it could be accessed from the remote environment. Education was needed to establish a common understanding of the EHR hosting model and managing individual expectations.

Solution

VVRMC partnered with Tegria for remote hosting using Tegria’s cloud environment and went live in February 2020. Only one month into the three-month EHR optimization period, VVRMC had to repurpose hospital rooms as COVID-19 isolation units, changing the billing for those rooms on the fly. By July, the Del Rio region of Texas had a 54% weekly positivity rate for COVID-19. It was clear that VVRMC was in a period of significant disruption—both planned and unforeseen—and had to act quickly. They decided to significantly accelerate technological adoption and implementation plans.  

Working together, VVRMC and Tegria were able to launch telehealth visits and point-of-care solutions in only 30 days instead of two years and 12 months, respectively. The point-of-care devices were particularly well-received by the nurses, who said they make work at VVRMC significantly easier. VVRMC expected to recover the full cost of implementation and begin seeing financial gains from the addition of the devices in one year. 

VVRMC also decided to implement remote patient monitoring (RPM), and with Tegria’s help, was up and running in 30 days, offering RPM for all departments. This implementation was critical to pandemic response because doctors were able to monitor patients at home using a variety of devices and identify adverse events without sending them to the hospital.