Kansas Department of Health and Environment Protecting the Public Health

The laboratory for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment is using DocuWare to electronically store submission forms and test results; easing compliance with state and federal EPA statutes and regulations, as well as other regulations such as HIPAA. New efficiencies with automated work processes have allowed the laboratory to increase their productivity while reallocating almost 65% of the administrative staff.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment works to protect the public health and environment of the state of Kansas. The Division of Health and Environmental Laboratories (DHEL) is an integral and important part of the Kansas public health system. DHEL performs over one million chemical and microbiological tests each year that are used as the primary assessment and enforcement tool in public health issues ranging from detection of environmental contaminants to the control of infectious diseases.

In addition, the DHEL performs certification site visits at more than 500 health, environmental, and law enforcement laboratories throughout Kansas annually. This enforcement and training effort ensures the quality of laboratory data which touches the lives of each Kansas citizen.

Documents

Two different documents make up the bulk of the laboratory’s paperwork. The first is a laboratory submission form, a document that accompanies every sample sent to the laboratory for testing, which provides important information such as: who collected the sample, the date, time and location of the sample, as well as the tests being requested. The second document type the laboratory needs to manage is the computer generated report of the test results.

Work Process

The laboratory follows a simple workflow. When a sample and submission form is received, the sample is tagged and sent to the laboratory while the submission form is sent to the data entry department where it is manually entered into the laboratory management software system and then filed. In the laboratory, technicians would print two copies of the result report, sending one to the client and filing the other in the laboratory’s archive. Occasionally, the staff would need to retrieve the original form to verify test requests or sample data.

The laboratory processes over 300,000 samples a year from all over the state. Approximately half of the samples contain confidential patient information, which makes the laboratory subject to the privacy and access requirements defined by the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act, commonly known as HIPAA. The laboratory needs to store most documents for five years, with the exception of neonatal reports, which in compliance with Kansas State Law, needed to be stored for 21 years.

Only six months of laboratory records could be stored in the administration office at one time.  Older records had to be stored on a different floor onsite and in an offsite warehouse. As with any paper-based system, documents were misfiled or lost and retrieving a document could be a lengthy process.

Solution Requirements

The laboratory’s Director wanted to ­automate their workflow and decrease ­filing time. During his search, the state of Kansas passed a regulation allowing electronic information to take the place of paper documents. With this newly passed regulation in mind, he widened his search in order to find an easy-to-use electronic document management system with a low total cost of ­ownership.

Solution

Word-Tech Business Systems, an Authorized DocuWare Partner, installed the DocuWare solution. Today, the laboratory captures two documents for each sample or 600,000 images a year, and most paper records are kept for only six months before being destroyed. All laboratory employees have access to DocuWare. Submission forms are now scanned and automatically indexed in DocuWare, using OCR technology to “read” information from the form. As the reports of the test results are generated by the mainframe, DocuWare automatically - with no manual intervention, stores them in the electronic file cabinet for quick and easy reference. One copy of the laboratory report is still printed and sent to the client.

The solution has since expanded and is now used to capture and store quality assurance documentation and calibration testing for some of the laboratory’s instrumentation.

The Benefits in Detail

User Benefits

Since implementing DocuWare, the laboratory’s workflow has grown into a more efficient process, providing laboratory employees with the tools they need to streamline their many tasks, lowering employee stress levels and improving morale. Training employees to use the solution was easy, which made for a very smooth transition from paper to electronic files.

Division Benefits

Today, documentation can easily be accessed regarding samples and test results, all from the desktop and all while on the phone – thus increasing productivity. Multiple index fields allow the DHEL to quickly find the needed document for any inquiry regardless of how many months ago the testing was done.

By electronically storing their instrumentation quality assurance records, the laboratory can now verify and question the results of any test. The DHEL’s use of DocuWare helps it support the Divisions of Health and Environment by limiting legal liability and securing information in order to comply with various regulations.

Tests performed for the Division of Health containing patient information are in compliance with the privacy and access requirements mandated by HIPAA. Document security is maintained by assigning access rights on a file cabinet and user level.

The Division of Environment relies on compliance inspections and monitoring to determine fulfillment of state and federal EPA statutes and regulations. In some instances the Division must issue administrative orders and fines, or resolve cases in state or federal district court. Documentation stored in DocuWare regarding instrument calibration and test results is used to help prosecute and enforce EPA statutes and regulations in court.

Organizational Benefits

Changing state and federal laws have resulted in more samples and more tests sent to the DHEL. The elimination of time-consuming manual filing, plus quick access to information and automated work processes, help the laboratory manage their increasing volume without adding additional personnel.

“Our ROI from DocuWare has been pretty dramatic. We used to employ 11 individuals in data entry and now we’re operating with only four employees.   Efficiency in the laboratory has gone up quite a bit, but one of the most exciting things is that we’ve increased the number of samples we process while reallocating our staff size,“ said Robert Bostrom, Director of the Office of Sample and Data Management for the Laboratory Division of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

The benefits of DocuWare ripple down to effect every Kansas citizen. Precise document management practices concerning crucial public health testing and laboratory instrumentation help the state address and prosecute public health issues. DocuWare is key in assisting DHEL achieve its mission of maintaining modern data management in order to meet their commitment to analytical excellence.

Our ROI from DocuWare has been pretty dramatic. We used to employ 11 individuals in data entry and now we’re operating with only four employees. Efficiency in the laboratory has gone up quite a bit, but one of the most exciting things is that we’ve increased the number of samples we process while reallocating our staff size.

Robert Bostrom,

Director of the Office of Sample and Data Management,

Laboratory Division of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment

The Task

Reduce document handling time

Automate work processes

Provide better support to other divisions

Appointed Modules

DocuWare

CDMAKER

COLD/READ

RECOGNITION

The Benefits

Residents of Kansas enjoy better public health services

Able to increase productivity while reallocating personnel to meet growing regulatory environment

Compliance with state and federal regulations

Reduced legal exposure

Secure documents

Automated work processes