Humana Will Test Computer That Could Cut Hospital Labor Expenses
Humana, one of the nation’s largest hospital chains, will test an advanced computer system made by a young San Bernardino company, Health Data Sciences, that Humana hopes will improve record keeping and accurately monitor hospital costs.
If the ULTICARE Patient Care Information System pilot now being installed in its Louisville, Ky., 360-bed Humana Hospital Suburban proves its worth, the system will be extended to Humana’s 87 other hospitals across the nation, said Fred Pirman Jr., senior vice president of information systems. Humana expects to install about 300 terminals in Suburban’s patient rooms, physicians’ lounge, labs and pharmacy, he said.
For fledgling Health Data Sciences, the Humana contract represents the second major step in its 2 1/2-year existence. Earlier this year it sold ULTICARE to the William Beaumont Hospital System in Royal Oak, Mich. It will be installed in two Detroit-area hospitals.
Neither Health Data Sciences nor Humana would venture to say how much the contract might eventually be worth, since its future depends on the success of the Suburban pilot study, which Pirman said could take two years. Beaumont paid a total of $9.5 million for its system.
Pirman said Humana already relies heavily on computers to perform such functions as tracking inventory, ordering supplies and generating bills. “But,” he said, “we wanted something that would have more impact on hospital operations.”
About a year ago, on the tip of an investment analyst, Pirman contacted Ralph A. Korpman, an entrepreneur, physician and computer scientist. Korpman had developed the kind of integrated system Humana was looking for, Pirman said. After more testing, Humana concluded “that there was enormous potential for improvements both in productivity and in the quality of patient care.”
Two-thirds of the system’s cost goes for hardware--seven MV 1000 mini-computers made by Data General. The rest is for software applications, including patient registration and admitting, discharge and transfer, order communication and charges, result reporting, nursing bedside support, pharmacy, medical records, patient scheduling and control, lab and radiology departments, diagnosis-related groups and case-mix analysis, word-processing, physician staff registry and management information.
Korpman maintains that his company’s system is designed to cut hospital labor costs by eliminating nurses’ clerical duties through placement of terminals at the bedside, where treatment occurs, as well as in ancillary departments supporting treatment. At the same time, precise cost-and-time data can be entered to enable the hospital’s administrators to track operating costs accurately, he said.
The ULTICARE system is accessed by a magnetized card similar to that used to activate an automated bank teller. After an employee enters an identifying code, the terminal screen displays the treatment specified by the patient’s doctor. The employee records what treatment is given, removes the card and moves on to another patient.
If the physician has installed a terminal in his or her office, linked by telephone, the hospitalized patient’s medical treatment can be monitored and the medical chart reviewed or revised remotely. The physician’s identification number automatically “signs” his orders for drugs, tests and treatments.
Pirman said the time saved by such remote monitoring offers Humana a potential advantage against competitors.
