Thirty years ago, Eric Heiden became the first athlete to win five gold medals at a single Olympic Winter Games, setting world and Olympic records and sweeping all five individual speed skating events. It's a feat no other skater has ever accomplished. He dominated the sport, set 15 world records, and after retiring, successfully competed as a cyclist, winning a U.S. championship and racing in the 1986 Tour de France.
Today, Doctor Eric Heiden is achieving a different kind of success – as an orthopaedic surgeon following in his father's footsteps and fulfilling a lifelong dream to practice medicine. It's a passion he pursues with the same drive and dedication he displayed as a world-class athlete. And just as he did while training to race, he embraces new ideas to make Heiden Orthopaedics, his Park City, Utah, practice, the best that it can be.
"There is a fine line between being successful and not being successful,” said Heiden. "Whether it's in sports or medicine or some other profession, you always need to do that little bit extra, try that little bit harder. You have to keep an open mind, watch what's going on in other industries, and then be willing to incorporate new ideas and new technologies that will allow you to do what you do even better.”
Dr. Heiden recently put that philosophy into practice at his own clinic. He is in the process of implementing a revolutionary records management software system that will take Heiden Orthopaedics to the cutting edge of information technology.
"We are on the cusp of major technological changes in the medical field with regard to patient medical charts,” he explains, "but a lot of private practices have not yet made the transition. I've been practicing medicine for 14 years, and when I was at University of California-Davis, we were just starting to put together electronic medical records. I've been watching the software capabilities expand for about eight years now. I've looked at a lot of different packages and Records Studio® was the one for us.”
Still at the forefront, utilizing high-tech to improve performanceJust as athletes benefit from high-tech gear, clothing and equipment that enables them to be faster, better, stronger, Heiden says Records Studio utilizes superior technology to help optimize the performance of all departments of his medical practice, not just patient care.
"You are always looking for ways to maximize your dollars, minimize your expenses, and better serve your patients,” he explained, "and this software does all three – plus, we were able to implement it with minimal disruption to the practice.”
A content management system that manages all physical and electronic files, Records Studio adapts to any existing records structure and works across an entire enterprise, including all of its business units and departments around the world. It allows users to create, route, store, search and retrieve data from all corporate systems and databases, including records, files, documents and e-mail.
Customizable and cost effective"One of the best things about the software,” said Heiden, "is its flexibility and ease of implementation. The platform is adaptable to individual practices and even to individual preferences within a practice. For example, my wife Karen, who is also a physician at Heiden Orthopaedics, is a hand surgeon. I'm in sports medicine. The things we want to know about a patient will be different. She's going to want more specialized hand information. I'm going to want to know about knees and shoulders. With Records Studio, we're each able to determine what we want our records to look like.
"Plus,” he added, "I'll be able to access those records from anywhere in the world, so if I'm traveling with a sports team in Europe and I need information about somebody's medical history, I have immediate access to that electronic record.”
Heiden sees potential for drastically reducing IT costs when the system is fully operational. "One immediate cost savings,” he says, "will be transcription costs. Automatic transcription will save the practice thousands of dollars each year. Generating physical charts, entering paper, storing and filing the charts – all that takes time and costs money,” continued Heiden.
A healthy choice for patients, tooGathering relevant patient information is challenging in our current health care system, says Heiden, and electronic records will provide a much more efficient and accurate way to acquire, sort, share and use information as needed, saving time and money for patients as well as doctors, and improving the quality of care. Too much information is lost, mistranslated or duplicated, all of which adds to our country's increasing health care costs.
"The health care industry is being encouraged to develop electronic medical records,” said Heiden. "There is, in fact, a government stimulus program to help with the cost of implementation. The hope is that by having an electronic medical record, correct information can be easily and securely disseminated within the medical field. Now, with paper charts, it's very difficult to gather pertinent patient information, especially if that patient has seen a number of different providers.”
The bottom line, says Heiden, is that utilizing Records Studio will allow him more time to do his real job – practicing medicine – and helping other athletes reach their goals and achieve their dreams.
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