Untangling Digital Networks to Provide a Seamless EHR Experience

Client Success Profile

• Name: Artesia General Hospital
• Location: Artesia, New Mexico
• Bed Count: 49

Artesia General Hospital is an acute care facility in the southeast region of eastern New Mexico, primarily serving the Artesia and Carlsbad communities. The hospital is supported by 11 associated clinics, which offer a variety of medical services, including family medicine, behavioral health, orthopedics, general surgery, podiatry, wound care, pain management, endocrinology, cardiopulmonary, and women’s services.

Overall, Artesia General and its associated clinics cater to approximately 250,000 patients in the surrounding geographical area, ensuring access to comprehensive healthcare for residents of the region.

In the early 2000s, Artesia General made the decision to begin digitizing its health records. After a decade of various implementations, the result was a hybrid structure of paper records and electronic health record (EHR) technologies, which caused more problems than it solved. Issues ranged from information gaps and rework across multiple systems to financial liability and more.

“When I started in 2014, there were three people in IT, and our immediate challenge was being behind the technological curve,” recalled Eric Jimenez, Artesia General’s chief information officer. “When we started the endeavor of getting ourselves caught up, the goal was a seamless integration of technology into healthcare operations.”

Dealing with a tangled mix of systems and processes, Artesia General’s biggest need was a single, unified EHR solution. Evident provided it. During the request for proposal (RFP) process, Evident consulted at length with the Artesia General team to identify pain points and opportunities to consolidate disparate systems and processes into a more user-friendly solution spanning both inpatient and outpatient settings.

“We needed one patient, one record, one bill,” Jimenez said. “That was our big requirement. We also wanted one system to handle our payroll, time and attendance, and ERP. We wanted something that would let us simplify and make it easier for our organization and partners to manage operations. Evident was able to deliver that.”

In healthcare, digitization is typically a slow-moving beast. But with Artesia General already behind the curve and eager to be untangled from its many obfuscated systems, the hospital’s leadership laid out an intimidating challenge: full-scale implementation with meaningful use within one quarter. Evident rose to the challenge and wasted no time calculating a strategic EHR deployment for widespread integration and adoption.

“The administrative team at that time was very aggressive,” Jimenez noted. “We had 90 days to implement this EHR and get it up and running with an emphasis on meaningful use. I asked if it could be done, and the Evident team was right there with us. They said yes, and we deployed within that window.”

Faced with a big-bang deployment, Evident didn’t just get Artesia General operational on a new EHR in 90 days. It stuck around to help achieve meaningful use right from the start. The Evident team was committed to the success of the deployment, providing a full complement of support for physicians, specialists, and administrative staff who would ultimately determine the effectiveness of the rollout through their adoption of it.

“When it came time to roll out the EHR, you had someone right there as you were implementing the system,” Jimenez remembered. “They were literally right there by your side to help. And that person was there for two or three weeks to get the system implemented and to make sure we were using it effectively.”

While it has been nearly a decade since Evident helped Artesia General make the leap to a unified EHR solution, the partnership continues to thrive. As EHRs have evolved, so has Evident — helping Artesia General take full advantage of the innovations offered by a comprehensive digital system. More importantly, there’s still a strong human connection forged by understanding the purpose of an EHR system and the needs of the people relying on it.

“From the executive team to the account managers to the sales reps during implementation, everyone has been there to help us,” Jimenez added. “I love Evident because I know we’re not a number. We’re not a cog in the machine. We’re a partner, and that speaks loudly.”