Since Adult General Medicine is the pilot department, advances and upgrades to the system will most likely be initiated there. .
For several years, Vanderbilt has used computer applications such as StarChart. The first step for E3 and going paperless was to convert StarChart into a new application called StarPanel. StarPanel allows the staff to retrieve patient information faster and in groups. It pulls information from three systems: StarPanel, Epic, and Medipac. These applications are used for electronic retrieval of clinical information, outpatient scheduling, and hospital admitting and discharge. A Vanderbilt doctor can instantly retrieve data on all patients he has seen in the last year, patients with a specific diagnosis, today's clinic schedule, or any number of defined sorts and filter searches. .
In less than a few seconds, StarPanel can access a multitude of information and allow the decision making process become more efficient. This process truly makes StarPanel indispensable and invaluable. The immediate benefit is that physicians and staff no longer need to request records and shuffle through stacks of paper to find patient information. A new route to creating patient registries and measuring practice improvement has emerged. .
This system mimics the old "paper world" process. StarPanel tools take the place of eighty percent of written documents. The other twenty percent of the remaining documents must, somehow, be submitted into the database. The beginning phase includes hand scanning. Outpatient order forms, faxes sent to physicians, insurance inquiries, medical history, and a photocopy of the patient's insurance card are the remaining documents being scanned. The scanned data is then associated with the patient's records and are accessible through an interface in StarPanel. At a later phase in the project, scanning documents should be eliminated completely.