UNM’s Student Health and Counseling center made the switch to electronic records last month, making students’ records safer but nurses’ jobs harder.
SHAC Director Beverley Kloeppel said the electronic system is safer because it eliminates risk of illegible practitioners’ notes.
Also, health care workers no longer have to flip through pages of records to find information, and clinicians are alerted immediately of any drug interactions for prescriptions. The system, though, is also causing longer work hours for practitioners struggling to enter patient notes into the system.
“Clinicians take the brunt of it,” Kloeppel said. “All of the staff are taking more time to learn the system.”
Kloeppel said she estimates it could take up to three years for SHAC to be completely efficient using the system.
Kloeppel said the switch to electronic records is estimated to have cost nearly $75,000. The funds came from extra student fees SHAC receives when enrollment is high.
“The money came from our putting money aside for every budget year,” she said. “We have been planning to do this for 10 years.”
Most of the SHAC staff members are on salary so they aren’t paid overtime, but Kloeppel said she hopes the electronic records are no more expensive to maintain than paper records.
The electronic records run on software through Medicat, a company that specializes in college health centers enables the system to be linked to Bursar and Registrar systems.
The software tracks billing, health and safety issues and allows more insurance companies to be billed so more students can stay on their parents’ insurance companies.
NMSU switched to the Medicat system in 2008.
Carol Nevarez, the nurse supervisor at NMSU said that after the initial expense, the NMSU health center did see a reduction in costs, both in paper and in needing less staff to prep and file charts.
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“The staff seems to prefer it over paper documentation,” Nevarez said. “Initially, it was a tough transition for those who did not work much with a computer, but most have adjusted since.”
Student Sarah Fentiman said she thinks the switch was a necessary change.
“I worked at a doctor’s office all summer so I was surprised (SHAC) still used paper,” she said. “I can’t imagine not using a computer.”
Kloeppel said there are plans for improvement to the system and she hopes to add an online student component to allow students to schedule appointments online, fill forms out ahead of time and add a self check-in so students don’t have to wait in line. SHAC also has its own IT center and security system to back up the records, along with the paper records, should the system go down.
