Rethinking the Documentation Process for KVC Health Systems

Like many behavioral health facilities, KVC Health Systems aims to provide the best, most efficient care for its clients. However, there are often obstacles the community faces that make providing care more difficult. In order to improve efficiency and reduce costs, KVC partnered with Netsmart to optimize a speech recognition solution. This technology speeds up the clinical documentation process and decreases the risk of data-entry error.

KVC is headquartered in the greater Kansas City area and provides adoption, foster care and inpatient and outpatient care to children across the region. For almost 50 years, KVC has enhanced and enriched the lives of children affected by abuse, trauma and neglect. Up until 2016, the Missouri and Kansas KVC facilities used transcription services to execute clinical documentation. This method of transcription caused delays in care communication, not to mention a time-consuming and labor-intensive documentation process. When the transcription process took up to 48 hours, clinicians treating an individual couldn’t immediately see valuable information entered into the electronic health record (EHR) after the client visit.

“We knew we needed a solution to do two things: ease the burden of clinical documentation and integrate with our electronic health record (EHR),” Shavonda Thrower, KVC business relationship manager said. “Also, it needed to be easy to use with minimal training.”

After implementing the speech recognition solution, KVC was able to cut the documentation process time in half. A provider’s notes now appear instantly in the EHR, allowing other clinicians to view an individual’s health information immediately without delay. When a treatment or medication plan changes, every clinician involved can now get the most up-to-date information in order to provide quality care. “The best part of the speech recognition tool is its powerful integration capabilities with the Netsmart EHR,” Thrower said. “It’s amazing to see how our users leverage all the integration features. They can open forms and access fields through voice commands and create custom templates to meet their individual workflow needs. The integration with Netsmart made this possible.”

Through the use of a speech recognition solution, KVC is empowered to provide more efficient, whole-person care with a decreased risk of error, increased accuracy, lower transcription costs and direct implantation of health notes into the organization’s EHR. This solution gives KVC the ability to increase staff satisfaction and continue to do what they do best: provide quality care.