As this region’s trusted source for comprehensive anatomic pathology services, it is essential that we evolve to continue delivering exceptional services to area hospitals, surgery centers, and physicians. We are excited to announce that we have made a significant investment in new technology and partnered with two industry-leading providers: Novopath and Ellkay. The South Bend Medical Foundation team will be working with updated systems featuring the latest technology available.
Ellkay
Ellkay provides healthcare connectivity solutions to hospitals, laboratories, and other healthcare organizations. Ellkay will make connecting electronically to our clients a much easier process. In addition, we are excited to begin offering the following programs:
Bridge
The LKBridge program improves accuracy in the laboratory ordering process. Before Bridge, we would receive patient demographic and insurance information each time an order was placed, often in paper form. The process is unautomated, tedious, and could lead to mistyped information. LKBridge connects the physician EMR/PMS system and our laboratory ordering system, seamlessly pulling in the necessary patient information.
Portal
The portal will allow the patient, healthcare professionals, and the South Bend Medical Foundation lab team to access medical information at their fingertips. The portal will contain electronic orders while capturing billing and testing information and allow reports and results to be uploaded into the system as completed. This software will improve time management and reduce costs as it will eliminate the need for remote printers, faxes, and other support resources.
Connect
Built exclusively for pathology laboratories, Connect provides revolutionary body-mapping solutions. This fully integrated software enables creating and printing lab-customized requisitions with an unlimited number of biopsy sites, diagnoses, related treatments, and images. From dermatology to urology, the Connect software produces clean lab order requisitions in less than a minute. The body-mapping feature allows providers to generate orders by clicking or pointing on an area, eliminating the need to handwrite orders. This software will enable our customers to save time when placing orders and make our reports more consolidated, time-efficient, and accurate.
Transfer
The LKTransfer tool enhances the integration between physician’s offices and the laboratory into one easy to manage system. This will eliminate the need to call individual offices to obtain information and provides a live view of necessary transactions. Additionally, the Transfer software eliminates the need to maintain a secure VPN by using secure web services to facilitate orders and result delivery. With this software, patient information will be protected as HIPAA compliance remains top-of-mind.
New technology investments will minimize the need for paper patient reporting.
Novopath
Novopath is a cloud-based laboratory information system that will improve our efficiencies and workflow in-house. The software offers advanced integrated reports, data mining, image capture, electronic release, and more. The key features include:
Cloud and Secure Web Reporting
Novopath’s cloud solution allows our team to work from anywhere without losing any information or dealing with additional software and technology hardware. In addition to the cloud, Novopath offers secure web reporting, allowing clinicians access to their patients’ reports. This information will be safeguarded in compliance with HIPAA and our security best practices.
Automated Reflex Testing
Many labs keep track of additional tests that may need to be ordered once an initial diagnosis is completed, but with Novopath, the process will be automated. Following an initial diagnosis, this feature will create a custom list of associated procedures such as HPV or tumor biomarker testing. This feature will reduce the possibility of error and free up time that spent manually completing these steps.
Detailed Organ Maps, Graphs, and Images
This feature will allow our pathologists to enhance patient reports with annotated organ maps, images, graphs, or histograms based on findings. Novopath will enable us to provide patient reports in a format that physicians should find easier to read and combine all diagnoses into one report.
Lean Processing
With Novopath’s lean processing feature, our lab will be able to identify specimen locations at any given time from anywhere. The system will ensure accurate patient and specimen identification via barcodes that must be scanned before work can proceed. Novopath will cooperate with the South Bend Medical Foundation to develop workflow processes that eliminate inefficient or unnecessary steps, improve turnaround time, and reduce error.
Moving Forward
As the South Bend Medication Foundation team begins to utilize both the Novopath and Ellkay software in the laboratory, we expect to see an improvement in time management and report TAT. We are currently in the implementation phase with a target of full implementation by October 2021.
While these programs will improve the South Bend Medication Foundation’s work, the ease of transition is also of utmost importance. As we change, we will work alongside our partners to ensure that the implementation of these programs is smooth and understood by all parties. SBMF is a pillar of the South Bend and northern Indiana healthcare community, and we will continue to be with the implementation of these new programs. If you have any questions, please contact us today.
