Bond Clinic: Practical Efficiency
Corporate Spotlight
Written by Amanda Gaines   
Saturday, 01 December 2007
Bond Clinic: Practical Efficiency - Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Howard King explains how construction and IT investments have enhanced the customer experience at this physician practice.

No amount of high-tech equipment will influence a patient’s opinion as much as an efficient healthcare experience. Howard King knew this when he walked through the doors of Bond Clinic in 2002, and he set out to enhance that experience by making it easier for patients to come to the clinic, receive the services they need, and walk out the door feeling satisfied.

Bond Clinic: Practical Efficiency - Executive - RedCoat Publishing
Howard King, CEO
King accomplished a great deal of what he set out to do, but it wasn’t easy getting started. Five years ago, Central Florida felt the pain of expanded Medicare cutbacks and increased restrictions on entering patients into the system. “Medicare was more concerned about gathering information than making it pleasant for the patients,” said King, CEO of Bond Clinic. “At that time, our information system had some semblance to an EMR, but our physicians weren’t taking full advantage of its benefits.”

Attempting to stay with the same system the physicians had used for 10 years, King started turning on the “bells and whistles” the Mysis system had and then digitized the practice’s imaging capabilities. “From there it was an easy step off for the physicians to buy into a full EMR, as well as a large relational database to tie together our practice management system to the EMR,” he said.

At that time Mysis didn’t have a reliable EMR, so King sent out an RFP. NextGen’s combined EMR and practice management system fit the bill. “We knew we would go through a conversion either way because the system we had with Mysis was old and needed to be updated,” King said. “We converted the practice management application six months prior to the EMR.”

Bond Clinic converted its lab and practice management systems simultaneously. Rather than muddling the administrative process with numerous platforms, physicians can now access all patient records and reports through the NextGen platform. “NextGen is the only system physicians will see, but they’ll be ordering through our IDX, PACS, and lab systems. It’s much easier for our staff and our physicians.”

To prevent the problems the physicians had with the previous system, the staff of all 45 of the clinic’s physicians went through intense training. A full understanding of the system’s capabilities, King theorized, will make the physicians curious, rather than frustrated, with the technological possibilities.

Unanimous vote
The new IT platform is also simplifying the lives of Bond Clinic patients. A few physicians have taken advantage of the ease of access by printing patient records from the EMR and taking them into the exam room, reviewing all charts and reports, and handing them to the patient as s/he leaves the appointment.

“Patients are happier because they have their medical information, and they understand what the charts say,” King said. “If patients have to go to another healthcare provider quickly, they won’t have to wait or sign a release form for that information.”

Few Bond Clinic physicians have employed this patient-friendly practice, but it’s only because the clinic is in the midst of its EMR conversion. Once all systems are up and running, transitioning into the electronic system is not an option; it’s a requirement. When the clinic first embarked on the EMR, because of increasing reimbursement pressures and the exorbitant cost of running two disparate systems, the physicians unanimously voted that if a member of the team did not use the EMR, s/he would no longer be a part of Bond Clinic.

“This group has always had a solid reputation. The patient/physician relationship was always good, but it broke down in the administrative structure,” said King. “We’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how to mend that break. Participation is not an option.”


Tying bind
The tying bind between any and all recent changes made at Bond Clinic is efficiency. After adding ENT, neurology, urology, interventional cardiology, and pediatric services in the past two years, and after being nationally recognized for its echocardiography program (which is used as a training site for the technology), the clinic needed more space. A laboratory and radiology department remodeling in 2004 helped, but it wasn’t enough.

Then, in 2005, local developer Six Ten approached Bond Clinic when looking for a partner to redevelop what was known as the Verizon building. “It’s a monolithic structure that had deteriorated quite a bit,” King said. “Six Ten needed an anchor tenant, and we agreed to participate.”

One benefit of participating in the project is the proximity of the building, which is closer to Winter Haven, Florida’s hospital than Bond Clinic’s current headquarters. The other is the cost savings. The tax structure in Winter Haven includes an impact fee, which would cost the clinic $40,000 per 1,000 square feet of space developed, even before adding construction costs. Because of the partnership, these fees were not an issue.

In 2007, Bond Clinic moved its business office and full-service laboratory to the new location and will move its OB/gyn department within the next year. The clinic is also adding Bond Aesthetics, which is a spa-like setting for cosmetic procedures, with a completely separate entrance for female patients. Because patient comfort is also extremely important to the clinic, it will be purchasing a state-of-the-art, high-field, open MRI within the next year that will allow the parent to accompany his or her child through the screening. The MRI also has cutting-edge breast imaging capabilities and can hold up to 250 pounds.

“Centralizing some of our services and making our new facility more attractive to our female patients is just one way we’re improving our patients’ healthcare experience,” King concluded. “All of our improvements are geared at enhancing the patient experience because that is what determines their perception of quality.”

 
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