A PRO-MAPP Case Study with Michael E Berend, MD
Learn how one surgeon’s organization repurposed two staff members and saved $3,000 in monthly dictation fees with easy-to-implement software.
“With PRO-MAPP we can do automated, customized dictation,” says Berend. “When I leave the OR, the dictation is already done and significantly reduces the days in accounts receivable.”
While increasingly mandated, Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software has a reputation of being cumbersome, expensive, and clunky. However, when Mike Berend, MD and other early adopters implemented the PRO-MAPP software to his team, they found the process to be simple, leading to time savings, increased patient response information, and improved surgeon and patient relationship.
Traditional EMRs were actually creating more work for Berend and his staff.
When electronic medical record software became mandated approximately 10 years ago, it’s implementation posed an assortment of problems for surgeons, facilities, and even patients. In fact, Berend says the systems haven’t delivered the value that everyone had intended. Instead it made the patient experience less intimate.
“This is largely driven, in my opinion, because the surgery team, facility team, and the patient are not involved in the value proposition for most EMR software,” says Berend. “That has led to significant increase in cost, decrease in efficiency, and increased time. Basically the EMR has not delivered nearly the value that it was intended to deliver.”
Prior to implementing the PRO-MAPP platform, Berend outlined that he wanted the software to perform the following:
- Increasing visibility of preoperative and postoperative patient reported outcome measures
- Increasing rate in patient satisfaction surveys
- Increasing efficiencies in surgery workflow especially around op-notes
- Improvements with accounts receivable causing a decreased amount of time from surgery to billing
Key Results from utilizing PRO-MAPP
After fully implementing PRO-MAPP, here are some of the outcomes that early adopters from around the US have recorded:
- Reduced time from service to posting by 75%
- Reduced time from service to billing by 68%
- Overall time in accounts payable is now under 24 days as opposed to 36 days
- Saved $3,000 each month in dictation fees
- Ability to repurpose two full-time employees due to back-office efficiency features
How PRO-MAPP was Implemented
Typically when implementing new software, it’s met with pushback as it’s often an uphill battle to change routines, workflows, and systems.
“Humans are doing increased work just to make the IT system function. All of our team spends a large percentage of their day staring at a screen instead of assisting and interacting directly with patients,” says Berend.
However, implementing PRO-MAPP was fairly a simple process for Berend and his team which has created significant increased efficiencies and delivered reproducible results in surgery scheduling, PROM collection, data management, and operative report generation.
“You have to buy a few tablets, teach people how to load patient names into the system, set standard operative reports, and it largely runs itself,” says Berend. “What used to take a ton of time and energy has been saved and after the few hours invested to set up has produced significant dividends.”
Here were the steps he took to start the implementation of PRO-MAPP:
- Purchase tablets and charging ports for staff to use
- Download the PRO-MAPP application onto each device
- Set up the system by using templates to create preoperative and post-operative surveys
- Decide on metrics and scoring systems for PROMS (patient reported outcome measures)
- Schedule staff training, teaching them how to add patients to the system
“The IT system should be saving time and producing better efficiencies at a higher quality. PRO-MAPP does this reliably day in and day out. That’s why we use it.”
In short, it should only take a few weeks to fully implement PRO-MAPP.
Results of using PRO-MAPP
After using the software, these are the top 4 pain points that Berend’s team notices were significantly improved when utilizing PRO-MAPP:
- Surgery scheduling
- Patient reporting outcome measures
- Operative notes
- Billing efficiencies
Unlike EMR software, PRO-MAPP is completely customizable allowing for the surgeon to drive the data collection process. With the utilization of PRO-MAPP, Berend was particularly excited to eliminate the post-op dictation process. Typically, all dictation is accumulated orally, and then goes through a transcription process before being sent to billing. This often delays the billing process.
“With PRO-MAPP we can do automated, customized dictation,” says Berend. “When I leave the OR, the dictation is already done and significantly reduces the days in accounts receivable.”
“The data collection and prospective implant tracking has been incredible and producing great results day in and day out at a fraction of our former costs. Now that we utilize PRO-MAPP there is no going back to clunky inefficient systems that aren’t customizable to our rapidly changing and improving workflows and care,” says Berend.
