Flagler Hospital, a long-time customer of Orchard Software, implemented Orchard® Enterprise Pathology™ and quickly saw improvements to their pathology laboratory workflow. Some of the benefits realized by Orchard Enterprise Pathology implementation include:
- Greater overall lab efficiency and streamlined workflow
- Easy to use, intuitive user interface
- Faster, more accurate results
- Improved reporting
- Automation of manual processes
- Reduced potential for errors
- Reduced billing turnaround time
Flagler Hospital Has a Wide Reach in Northeast Florida
Flagler Health+, based in St. Augustine, FL, is a total healthcare system that provides comprehensive care across northeast Florida. Flagler Health+ is an extension of Flagler Hospital, an acute care, 335-bed hospital with a 130-year legacy of caring for the community, including being named among America’s 50 best hospitals. Flagler Health+ has several locations throughout the area and their services include Care Connect+, an outreach program that helps residents connect with the resources they need to live healthier lives.
Orchard Software & Flagler Hospital Work Together to Improve Patient Care
Flagler Hospital’s laboratory implemented Orchard® Harvest™ and Orchard® Outreach™ in 2015. In 2019, Flagler Hospital added Orchard® Point-of-Care™ to assist in their outreach endeavor that includes urgent care offices, primary care facilities, and health villages. Most recently, Flagler’s anatomic pathology (AP) laboratory implemented Orchard Enterprise Pathology.
Extensive Anatomic Pathology Lab Services
Their AP laboratory processes 7,500 cases per year, including surgical pathology, radiological, surgical breast pathology, non-GYN cytology, and outside consultation cases. The lab processes more than 37,000 specimens, 29,000 blocks, 47,000 slides, and 1,500 send-out cases per year. This workload is accomplished with two pathologists, four laboratory staff, and two administrative staff members. The large volume and diversity of case types results in numerous data types and complex workflows.
The Decision to Partner & Grow with Orchard
Flagler Hospital’s laboratory decided to implement Orchard Enterprise Pathology due to a long-term relationship with Orchard Software and their positive experience using Orchard’s products. Their laboratory reported that Orchard’s products are intuitive, easy to use, customizable, and logical.
To manage their complex AP processes, various workflows, and wide variety of specimens, they chose to implement Orchard Enterprise Pathology, which was expressly designed for a laboratory like theirs. Orchard Enterprise Pathology manages information transfer to and from Flagler’s hospital information system. The solution has an ADT interface and a billing interface. It automates the ordering and reporting process by managing orders and results with clinicians.
The Implementation Experience
Pathology supervisor Kelley Durden, who has more than 25 years of experience in pathology laboratories, was impressed with the dedication of Orchard’s field implementation team during the implementation and go-live.
Flagler Hospital’s lab team experienced a smooth transition from Orchard Harvest to Orchard Enterprise Pathology, including integration with their speech recognition software.
Orchard Adds Value to Flagler Hospital’s AP Lab
Both the laboratory team and the pathologists appreciate the efficiencies that Orchard Enterprise Pathology affords their lab. The laboratory has been able to automate many processes that were previously manual, saving time and reducing the opportunity for errors.
AP Worksheet Makes Jobs Easier
The pathologists report that they find the system intuitive and easy to use. Specifically, the flexibility and layout of the worksheet makes their jobs easier. They appreciate the ability to expand, collapse, or remove panes from the worksheet view to configure it to fit their workflow. Having the patient history displayed on the worksheet allows for easy visibility of previous cases. In addition, the color cues on the worksheet are a helpful visual that enables the lab to work quickly. Unsaved changes are blue, case materials matches are green, and patient alerts are red, for an easy-to-interpret view of workflow status.
Features That Set Orchard Enterprise Pathology Above the Competition
Other features that boost efficiency, improve accuracy, and are appreciated by the laboratory staff include the ability to add, edit, and view case comments and being able to see the gross description at the time of embedding. Together, these features help streamline the lab’s workflow.
Lab workstations with both computers and scanners allow materials to move through the laboratory workflow, to and from the pathologists as events take place. Fully bar-coded case materials are integrated with cassette and slide printers, improving efficiency and reducing potential errors.
Customized lab reports are easier to read and interpret, improving the usefulness of reports. In addition to improvements to patient report formats, creating administrative reports that capture daily volumes is another major benefit that eliminates the need to manually count cases, specimens, blocks, and slides. To improve reimbursements, Orchard Enterprise Pathology automates CPT code configuration, which has reduced billing turnaround time by two weeks. The Flagler Health+ team reports that these types of functionalities and level of configurability are what sets Orchard Enterprise Pathology apart from its competitors.
