SRS Software adds another gold star to its record, achieving First Honors in the category of Best Document Imaging Solution, awarded at the 2006 TEPR Annual Meeting (Towards the Electronic Patient Record) in Baltimore, Maryland. SRS’ Freedom Chart Manager™ was selected from a field of four finalists.

Matt Ethington (right), Vice President of Business Development, accepts the Best Document Imaging Solution on behalf of SRS Software from Peter Waegemann, CEO, The Medical Records Institute, at the TEPR (Toward Electronic Patients) Conference.

"This coveted award is proof positive that SRS is setting the industry standard, with Freedom Chart Manager™ outdistancing the competition for its ease of use, one-click architecture, and capabilities to enhance workflow at high volume medical enterprises by streamlining chart navigation and allowing physicians to maintain productivity," states Evan Steele, CEO of SRS Software, Inc.

SRS Freedom Chart Manager™ was recognized as a powerful, elegant document management solution that electronically saves, categorizes and offers instant, ubiquitous access to charts. This award showcases SRS’ capacity to enable practices of all sizes to re-tool their operational workflow to eliminate paper charts, improve patient care, and bring balance back to the physicians’ lives.

If all goes according to plan, Stephens County Hospital will sport an extensive renovation to patients rooms by early 2008. Hospital administrator Ed Gambrell said the hospital authority recently met during a called meeting to discuss plans with an architect for the complete demolition and reconstruction of older patient rooms on the second and third floors of the medical facility.

Authority members reviewed the contract with the architect and voted unanimously to approve it.

"This project is quite extensive and will cost approximately $4 million to basically totally destroy those old patient rooms and completely rebuild them," Gambrell said.

"Because it is such an extensive project with complete and total destruction of the rooms and rebuilding them from floor to ceiling, that is why the price tag is so high. However, the rooms are long overdue for overhauling, and the patients will be well-pleased with the results," he said.

According to the hospital administrator, work will be conducted on eight- to 10-bed sections at a time, and when the project is completed, each of the rooms will have improvements including separate air controls for each room, individual room showers and a new headwall for oxygen and controls.

"The rooms that are included in this project are 40 years old, and they are in need of much cosmetic and functional upgrades," Gambrell said. "Today [June 7], we sent the certificate of need application to the State, which is required before we can begin the project. That will take, typically, 90-120 days to get the decision back so we can move forward," Gambrell said.

"But, during that time, the architect is continuing his work on the detailed plans, and the hospital authority is working on getting financing through a $4 million bond issue. That way, everything will be ready, and we will be able to sell the bond issue in October when we expect to hear from the State about the certificate of need application," he said.

"I expect that if everything goes as we have planned, we should be able to begin construction most likely in November of this year, and the architect is predicting that the entire project will be completed in 13 or 14 months from the time construction starts," Gambrell said.

Honoring its commitment to be the leading source of consumer information on Georgia hospitals, the Georgia Hospital Association’s Partnership for Health and Accountability (PHA) recently unveiled its new web-based consumer hospital guide, Insights 2006. For the first time, Georgia health care consumers have access to an interactive web site that allows them to make apples-to-apples, quality-related comparisons of Georgia hospitals.

"During a time when health care consumers are become increasingly educated and are clamoring for reliable health information, Insights 2006 serves as a major breakthrough in Georgia," said Joseph Parker, president of the Georgia Hospital Association. "We’re pleased to be able to offer this valuable tool and encourage Georgians to utilize it when choosing a hospital."

Insights 2006, which is located at www.gha.org/pha/Insights/2006/index.asp, is divided into two sections titled "Being Involved in Your Healthcare" and "Understanding the Insights 2006 Hospital Reports." The first section provides helpful guidance to those accessing the health care system and answers questions such as "What should I do if I am admitted to the hospital?" and "What should I know about my medicines?" The second section details what each Georgia hospital is doing to enhance quality and allows users to select up to six hospitals at a time to make hospital-to-hospital comparisons in the treatment of four common health conditions: heart attacks, heart failure, pneumonia, and pregnancy. The data evaluates how well hospitals practice what are considered the most safe and effective procedures for treating common conditions and compares the hospital’s current rates for these conditions to the previous year to gauge improvement.

Presently, 151 Georgia hospitals are featured in Insights 2006, which is updated on a quarterly basis. The site also includes other useful information such as whether the hospital is participating in national quality and patient safety initiatives including the nation’s leading accrediting body — the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations — and if the hospital has received a prestigious Quality and Patient Award from PHA.