HTTS (Hospital Transcription Transmission System)

Overview

The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) required a system capable of automatically transmitting transcriptions from transcription vendors to CHOP's internal patient management system, Epic Care. Additionally, the system was required to manage the workflow of transcriptions through the process of creation, proofing and transmission, as well as storing patient information transmitted from CHOP.

The Process

The project began with a kickoff meeting, which included Ideal personnel, CHOP IT personnel and CHOP Business Process personnel from the CHOP Business Process Innovation Center. A three month process ensued wherein CHOP worked towards defining the exact user, data and functional requirements, so that a comprehensive product specification could be delivered to Ideal. Ideal was involved throughout the process, attending weekly meetings and contributing as needed.

A specification was presented by CHOP and Ideal went to work developing the application in java. We soon learned that flexibility was critical when working with CHOP. Business processes, which were said to have been finalized, were changed on a weekly basis, therefore greatly affecting the end product. From a technical perspective the challenge was to integrate with CHOP's HL7 interface and the software beyond. This proved to be quite testing, as there were both hardware and software considerations beyond Ideal's control. Moreover, the technical specification was a moving target. Requirements were being realized by CHOP throughout the development process and Ideal was required to implement the changes.

Delivery

The finalized product (known as MediTrans at CHOP) was capable of accepting patient records automatically 24/7/365 via a secure tunnel. Patient information was stored in an SQL database and was used primarily to match physician dictations with the correct patient and to provide required data for transmitting transcriptions back to CHOP. Transcriptionist's could listen to a dictation, enter a patients MRN (Medical Record Number) into the system, retrieve the patients record, ensure that the dictation matched the patient, complete the transcription and save within the system. Proofers could then view all open transcriptions, proof and transmit to CHOP. A search capability allowed users to search for past transcriptions within the system, edit them as required and re-transmit to CHOP.

Conclusion

The system has been in use by CHOP without errors for over a year. CHOP is currently in the process of rolling out more users within CHOP, which are divided by specialty. The goal is to have all CHOP specialties and transcription vendors using the system by the end of 2008.