title: The Heart of the Matter: Increasing Quality and Charge Capture from Intraoperative Transesophageal Echocardiography.
abstract: Although transesophageal echocardiography is routinely performed at our institution, there is no easy way to document the procedure in the electronic medical record and generate a bill compliant with reimbursement requirements. We present the results of a quality improvement project that used agile development methodology to incorporate intraoperative transesophageal echocardiography into the electronic medical record. We discuss improvements in the quality of clinical documentation, technical workflow challenges overcome, and cost and time to return on investment. Billing was increased from an average of 36% to 84.6% when compared with the same time period in the previous year. The expected recoupment of investment for this project is just 18 weeks.
authors.affiliation: From the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California.
authors.forename: Joseph A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Sanford
authors.forename: Bassam
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Kadry
authors.forename: Daryl
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Oakes
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Macario
authors.forename: Cliff
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schmiesing
mesh_terms: D017548:Echocardiography, Transesophageal; D057286:Electronic Health Records; D006801:Humans; D007349:Insurance, Health, Reimbursement; D006278:Medicare; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D014481:United States