MediServe Client Implementation Case Study - Rehabilitative Medicine
University of Utah Hospital - University Health Care
Case Study 
University Health Care operates three hospitals (University Hospital, the Huntsman Cancer Hospital, and the University Neuropsychiatric Institute) as well as 80 general and specialty clinics. These include free-standing facilities like the John A. Moran Eye Center, the University Orthopaedic Center, and the Utah Diabetes Center. The Intermountain Burn Center at University Hospital is the only service of its kind in the Intermountain West. The University also employs 900-board certified physicians, which is the largest physician group in the country.
The hospital includes 23,000 inpatient visits, 700,000 ambulatory visits, 19 offsite locations, 14 retail pharmacies, and a TeleHealth outreach program that spans 13,500 square miles.
Prior to the MediLinks implementation, the Rehabilitation Services department used completely paper based documentation for all continuums of care. Some areas used dictation for evaluations, but all other evaluations, including daily treatment notes, progress notes, discharge summaries, and FIM data were gathered using paper charting.
The University Hospital went live with MediLinks for Rehabilitation in July 2004 with an inbound Admission Discharge Transfer (ADT) interface, an outbound billing interface, and an outbound narrative results interface to the enterprise EMR immediately available to the clinicians. These results are interfaced using the Cerner Millennium Connector (CMC) and Millennium Objects. MediLinks is run from both stationary workstations and mobile thin clients and tablets on carts using a wireless network enabling point of care documentation. MediLinks has assisted all disciplines to have uniform documentation by using branching logic and selection lists functionality. The University of Utah's Rehabilitation Services provides a unique blend of Critical Care, Acute Care, and Rehabilitation Services, providing world class services across the continuum of care.
One year later, the hospital upgraded a previous version of MediLinks for Respiratory Care in July 2005 specifically providing orders and worklist functionality, clinical documentation, flowsheets, and charge capture. The respiratory therapists are primarily running the MediLinks solution from laptops mounted on mobile carts using a wireless network. This provides point of care documentation, allowing real time integration and interfacing of both discrete and narrative results with an enterprise wide EMR.
The University of Utah Hospital and Clinics - University Health Care is embarking on a clinical quality improvement project called Care Transformation. It will include evidence based Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE), interdisciplinary structured clinical documentation, an electronic medication administration record, ICU documentation with bedside medical device integration, care plans, rules, and alerts. MediLinks for both Rehabilitation and Respiratory Care will be integral parts of Care Transformation and will include work on a bidirectional orders interface using CMC.
