FAYETTEVILLE - A $2 million Wal-Mart Foundation gift will further an effort by Washington Regional Medical Center in Fayetteville to become the first health-care provider in the region to have paperless patient records.
The emergency room was the first department at the 233-bed, acute-care hospital to generate an electronic medical record. The entire hospital, whichmoved to its current location in 2002, now captures patient information electronically.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville and its foundation have taken a recent interest in health-care information technology through various corporate initiatives intended to rein in medical costs.
Shannon Frederick, a Wal-Mart Foundation spokesman, said Washington Regional's health-care technology grant wasn't the first of its kind. In2004, part of a $5 million foundation award to Rogers-based Mercy Health System of Northwest Arkansas was earmarked for the Catholic health-care provider's new electronic medical record system to debut at its Mercy Medical Center.
Other Wal-Mart foundation efforts related to health care information technology include a $1 million donation in March to the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville for a Center for Innovation in Health Care Logistics.
And, in December 2006, the foundation made a $1.5 million donation to the Dossia Founders Group that is helping Wal-Mart achieve goals set out in its Better Health Care Together initiative. Dossia's Web site describes the group as a consortium of large employers united in their goal of providing employees, their dependents, retirees and others in their communities with an independent, lifelong healthrecord.
Wal-Mart this year gave its 1.3 million employees access to an electronic personal health record, since companies are forbidden direct access to workers' health records under the 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Personal health records can be electronic or paper, and include medical history, insurance and health provider information. They are not protected by the same federal privacy laws as electronic medical records.
And since technology has helped Wal-Mart attain high efficiency in the tracking and delivery of goods, corporate officials said they believe they can transfer those cost reductions to the health-care industry.
Linda Dillman, executive vice president of benefits, risk management and sustainability for Wal-Mart, praised Washington Regional's efforts to record patient information electronically.
"It's refreshing that we can support a program at the forefront of health-care innovationright here in our community of Northwest Arkansas,'' Dillman said in a news release.
Washington Regional has been adding to the type of patient information it collects electronically since June 2005, when it partnered with an information technology company to develop a more complete electronic medical record. The hospital said it has spent $8 million to support its electronic medical record, which is near completion.
The local push toward paperless records comes on the heels of a 2004 proposal by President Bush, who wants to make electronic records available to the public by 2014.
In summer, Washington Regional will add a final piece of critical electronic medical record information - the computerized provider order entry, which lets doctors write orders directly onto a computer. Now, about 80 percent of patient information is captured on electronic medical records at the hospital.
Becky Magee, the hospital's chief information officer, said the Wal-Mart award will help with technology costs related to a planned expansion of facilities.
The hospital recently embarked on a $54 million construction effort that includes a large emergency room. Washington Regional has added 40 patient beds on the fifth floor and is finishing a new administrative office and senior citizen health facility.
Business, Pages 21, 26 on 10/30/2007