Lewis & Clark – Efalia ECM : Behavioral Health Care Provider Discovers “Time” In Unexpected Places

Thanks to our partner Active Data Systems (ADS), Lewis & Clark Mental Health Services has adopted the Efalia ECM solution to efficiently manage its millions of documents. Since 2007, this digital transformation has enabled the agency to provide fast, secure access to patient records, while freeing up valuable space and optimizing workflows. Discover this case study that has enabled clinicians to spend more time on patient care, discovering “time” in unexpected places.

 

Lewis and Clark (L&C) Behavioral Health Services is a private, not-for-profit agency providing mental health services for persons in a seven-county area of southeaster South Dakota. Opened in 1968, it serves nearly 3,800 people annually with a staff of 110 people. Like all healthcare providers, the requirement and need for documentation is endless.

“Every client that comes in easily generates a ream of paper just because of all of the HIPAA (federal) regulations,” says Brenda Hoxeng, L&C’s Executive Secretary.

In 2007, Lewis and Clark Behavioral Health Services determined it needed to find a better way to handle the millions of documents that it had in its records system. The choice was an Efalia ECM Document Management System provided by Active Data Systems (ADS).

“Over the years we have tested and sold many other products,” says Mark McClung, ex-President of ADS. He added, “The Efalia ECM products have been found to be second to none, whether in the price of the product or the functionality.”

Broad Access to Documents

Says Hoxeng, “The majority of our clinicians actually go out of the office to see clients, either in their homes or at schools or our outreach centers in Lake Andes and Vermillion. Patient charts are not allowed to leave the facility, so they have no access to documentation outside of the facility.”

A function Lewis and Clark (L&C) found particularly beneficial was Efalia ECM’s ability to distribute documents via the Internet. With this capability, clinicians can easily and securely access documents from locations throughout their seven-county service area through laptops provided by L&C.

Said Hoxeng, “It’s just been a huge, huge help for us.”

 

Secure Documents

For Lewis and Clark, protection of information is vital. Efalia ECM’s comprehensive security settings ensure that only those with the proper usernames and passwords can access patient information.
According to Tammy Liebl, from L&C’s Information Technology Department,

“Efalia ECM offers us totally secure, totally encrypted connection through the web. It really works.”

 

Create Space

For any business, space is always an issue. As one can imagine, in its nearly 37 years of operation as a healthcare facility, the paperwork really mounted up. Storage is no longer a problem with Efalia ECM; it supports multiple document storage schemas and can easily handle millions of records and documents.

Said Brenda Hoxeng, “This is amazing for us. For instance, with our Alcohol and Drug Services, we’re not making charts anymore, so eventually when we’re totally paperless we’ll have extra room.”

Added Liebl, “Our one-year goal was that we wanted all current charts scanned and in the system and we met that goal and it’s over 2 million documents.”

 

Discover Time

As with many organizations, it seems that there is never enough time to get things done. On the Lewis and Clark Behavioral Health Sciences Yankton campus, nearly one block separates their two buildings. With Efalia ECM, Lewis and Clark uncovered “time” in unexpected ways.

Hoxeng explained, “I bet I would make 10 to 15 trips a day over there and now I make maybe one. I can just look up a chart and see what I need to see. If I need to send information out from a release, I can just print it out and send it. I don’t have to walk over there every time.”

With all staff and clinicians using Efalia ECM, the aggregated time savings have been quite significant.

 

Documents Stay in Current Formats

Efalia ECM has the most flexible and comprehensive document capture features available. Paper and electronic documents, whatever their format or source, are easily captured and organized.

Said Liebl, “I think the biggest advantage for us is that you can put a document into Efalia ECM in its own format. Like a Word document can stay a Word document in Efalia ECM. Most other programs don’t let you do that.”

Efalia ECM supports over 200 different file formats. You can easily page through, view thumbnails of it, and look at any previous versions of it, even if it has been revised.
Active Data Systems is committed to helping businesses and organizations like L&C identify their records and information needs, decrease their organization’s administrative costs, and bridge the gap between existing and future, more proficient, systems.