Waves of efficiency: Midwest healthcare system forgoes the traditional document management fix and instead pursues a BPM solution to bolster its revenue cycle improvement

Health Management Technology, Feb, 2005

Phase Two

Sisters of Mercy's phase two plan for this includes deployment of the AWD BPM solution at strategic service units, including St. John's Hospital in Washington, Mo., St. Mary's in Rogers, Ark., and St. Edward's in Fort Smith, Ark.

Once implemented systemwide, BPM will enable Sisters of Mercy to achieve consistent revenue cycle management simultaneously across the entire health network. At a system level, process management can provide additional benefits through economies of scale. For example, coding varies for each location. By enabling Sisters of Mercy to share coding resources between coders located in different facilities and geographic areas where hiring of coders can be difficult, the health network can achieve additional cost savings.

In the past two years, BPM has become an integral part of revenue management for St. John's Mercy. The rapid return on investment followed the schedule set forth in the pre-implementation cost benefit analysis. Revenue increased more quickly than anticipated. Ultimately, the ability to analyze business processes and improve efficiencies had the desired effect on the organization's revenue position, and the technology is being deployed by Sisters of Mercy systemwide across multiple facilities and business functions.

Source

St. John's Mercy Medical Center

Sisters of Mercy Health System St. Louis

www.stjohnsmercy.org

Product/Company

Automated Work Distributor

DST Technologies, a division of DST Systems Inc.

Kansas City, Mo.

www.awdbpm.com

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