Baystate Mary Lane Hospital Implements New System to Improve Patient Care

WARE — Pam Wallace has been the manager for Surgical Services at Baystate Mary Lane Hospital for more than 10 years now, and during that time, she has seen the department grow and advance in terms of surgical practice and quality of care.

“We have seen tremendous growth over the years, and while some of the growth is not readily seen by patients, it is done so with the patient experience in mind,” said Wallace.

What Wallace is referring to is a new system in place in the Surgical Services department at BMLH, designed to improve safety, communication, and the quality of the discharge instructions for gastrointestinal patients.

“Our new advanced digital charting system, produced by a company called gCare, is a computer-based software system used by physicians and nurses for our digestive health patients,” said Wallace.

According to Wallace, the system incorporates a number of modules or services, including:

• Message Center: Streamlines communications by allowing providers and staff to digitally review tasks, messages, appointments, results, faxes, scanned documents, and prescription refills in a single place;
• Office Notes: Designed for providers and staff to quickly document patient evaluation, and manages medical orders;
• Procedure Reports: Specifically created for each procedure to record findings and generate detailed reports (with associated documentation) along with anatomical descriptions and diagrams.
• Nursing Notes: Designed for fast and accurate pre-procedure, intra-procedure (peri-operative), and post-procedure nursing documentation.

“All of these services and modules are simple and robust in terms of providing information to patients and their primary care physician,” said Wallace. “They provide automatic procedure documentation, track orders for our physicians, manage laboratory results, and even prepare instructions for our nurses to review with patients before they are discharged to home.

“Enhanced staff and patient communication allows secure access to all patient charts, and decreases physician documentation time, thus giving them more time at the bedside with the patient,” she added.

The BMLH Surgical Services department located on the second floor of the hospital offers a digestive health program, surgical procedures in multiple specialties, and pain management.

The Surgical Services Department features a day-stay area for outpatient procedures, two digestive health-surgical procedure rooms, two full-service operating rooms, post-anesthesia care, as well as a sterile processing department.

“We offer state-of-the-art facilities in terms of space and technology while providing flexibility to accommodate future advances in the rapidly changing field of medicine,” said Wallace.

“The entire staff at Baystate Mary Lane Hospital is excited about the new technology and the benefits we will be able to provide to our patients in the community.”