Abstraction Technicians

To prepare for an EMR conversion, Kforce Healthcare Solutions can provide file clerks, scanning and HIM abstraction technicians to gather and review medical charts, abstract medical data and physically enter data into the EMR system. Our HIM technicians can also clean and scrub the data, verify and match patient information and scan paper records.

Case Study

Situation 

Tampa General Hospital (TGH), one of Florida’s largest hospitals, was preparing for an EMR implementation. With less than four months until go-live, TGH identified a need for more than 6,500 charts to be abstracted at seven of their clinics, with a multitude of specialties including Family Care, Obstetrics, Pediatrics and Outpatient. The abstraction of the charts would include critical patient information such as medical history, diagnosis, treatments, medications and dosages. These charts would be used by the physicians post go-live and any missing or incorrect information could create the appearance of a failed system. Therefore, the quality of the abstracted data was critical to the success of the implementation. The hospital did not have the resources to complete the project internally.

 
Solution

Kforce Healthcare Solutions was engaged to provide a project team on site at TGH’s clinics.  Within 72 business hours of meeting with the EMR implementation team at the hospital, Kforce was able to present qualified project manager candidates with clinical backgrounds and an experienced project manager with an RN degree was selected to oversee the project and team. Within 48 hours of the project manager selection, Kforce recruited a local team of four abstractors. The team began abstraction at the first clinic and moved to each site after the records were complete to coordinate with a rolling go-live date at each clinic.

 
For the duration of the project, the Kforce project manager provided weekly reporting of the completed work to the implementation team liaison and consistent feedback to improve efficiency and identify potential risks. While leveraging the clinical background of the Kforce project manager, the team worked with liaisons from each clinic specialty area to provide efficient issue resolution. 

 
Outcome

The abstraction project was completed on time with more than 2.5 times the volume of charts originally anticipated by the hospital. In 12 weeks, the Kforce abstraction team successfully completed abstraction on more than 16,000 charts with a very high accuracy rate.  In addition, Kforce was able to minimize the expense to TGH, as the team did not incur any overtime. Travel expenses were minimal because the majority of the team was local.

Experienced resources, led and managed by Kforce, coupled with weekly progress reporting and quality assurance, were the key factors in the project’s success. Subsequently, TGH has engaged the Kforce team to continue Phase II of the abstraction project. In this phase, we are providing abstracting services to the rehabilitation center, transplant unit and inpatient hospital records.

 
 
Contact us at 866-893-9547 or Healthcaresolutions@kforce.com.

To speak with a Kforce Healthcare Solutions Account Executive call 1-866-893-9547 or email HealthcareSolutions@kforce.com today.