Spelman Increases Health Center’s Productivity by 80 Percent with the Nuesoft Xpress™ Practice Management System

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Background/Reason For Search

In early 2001, the Spelman College health center staff determined it was time to automate operations. Driving the decision was an increase in patient traffic and the need to produce more sophisticated, robust reports. Not only was the level of student care threatened by inefficiencies; but the staff, led by Director Brenda Dalton, MBA, MSN, RN-C, WHNP, was becoming increasingly frustrated by paperwork and other manual processes.

Dalton and her colleagues had three options. They could add more staff to keep up with the additional patient flow; maintain the status quo; or automate the health center.

The Spelman team chose to automate, and began a search for a practice management solution.

The new system would aim to help meet these goals:

• Improve productivity;
• Enhance the level of patient care; and
• Provide timely and accurate reporting to Spelman administration.

Search and Selection Summary

After an extensive search, Dalton and her colleagues in the health center chose Nuesoft Xpress an Internet-based practice management solution. The health center staff, information technology (IT) department members, and key administration personnel were involved in the decision. The selection committee prioritized a list of criteria.

The new system would need to have these qualities:

• Easy-to-use, with a short learning curve for busy health center staff
• Guaranteed security of patient data
• Low cost
• Non-taxing to IT staff
• Advanced reporting capabilities

Nuesoft Xpress met or exceeded all of the selection committee’s specifications. Compared to other options considered, the committee found the Nuesoft Xpress system to be extremely intuitive and user-friendly. Even someone with no experience at a computer could easily navigate the screens and icons. In addition, the committee was impressed with the Nuesoft Xpress reporting module, which offers the ability to generate up to 200 different reports. Finally, because Nuesoft Xpress is Internet-based, the committee recognized that it would alleviate much of the work required by Spelman’s IT staff because software updates and backups would be handled at Nuesoft’s secure data center, as opposed to on site. This application model freed Spelman from the burden of purchasing any hardware or software, which made Nuesoft Xpress more cost effective than client-server based alternatives.

The Nuesoft Xpress Difference: Results At-a-Glance

Installation of Nuesoft Xpress took one day, and the health center staff were able to begin using the system the same day they were trained. After implementation in June of 2001, Dalton and her team saw immediate results. But how did it measure up to the three goals originally outlined by Dalton and her team when they decided to automate the health center?

Improve Productivity

As a result of automating its processes with the Nuesoft Xpress system, the productivity of Spelman’s health center staff increased by 80 percent. Dalton points to the fact that she was able to gain better control over staff activities, and that she could track prescribing and ordering profiles of health center providers as primary reasons behind the increased efficiency.

Enhance the Level of Patient Care

After automation with Nuesoft Xpress, the Spelman Health Center annual satisfaction survey recorded an increase in the satisfaction rating among student patients.

Students found the center to be ‘more professional, more responsive, and more organized’

− notes Dalton.

Provide Timely and Accurate Reporting to Student Affairs

The data available from the Nuesoft Xpress system proved to be enlightening.

Spelman College health center staff learned:

• The student health center was seeing significantly more patients than the manual system had previously indicated
• Women’s health visits exceeded the primary health visits; and
• Dalton personally was seeing 30 patients per day, in addition to managing her administrative duties as the director.

Based on these revelations, Dalton was able to justify to Spelman Administration the need for an additional nurse practitioner so that she could function fully as the director of the department. In addition, when the grant for the women’s health program expired, Dalton used the data from the reports to secure additional funding program.

“Nuesoft Xpress exceeded our expectations,” Dalton said. “It has helped us to streamline our processes, has made me a more organized director, keeps us ahead of the curve in college health, and ensures the health center department is indispensable to Spelman College. We could not live without it.”