A big-picture vision centered on quality and step-by-step improvements ensures the success of this multi-specialty physician group.

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The impetus behind every decision made at 79-year-old Summit Medical Group is a desire to provide the highest quality of care and service for its patients. Some decisions are bigger than others, such as implementing a system-wide EMR versus moving the 160-physician group to a new campus in 2006, but all are equally important, and all are quality-backed.

Dr. Jeffrey Le Benger, chairman of the board

The new site also gave Summit the opportunity to redesign its campus layout. By gutting and redesigning the pre-existing buildings, one of the country’s first multi-specialty physician groups was able to put complementary services together. Its podiatry center and ophthalmology and endocrinology departments are in an area focused on diabetes, and a new 60,000-square-foot building houses the group’s imaging, cardiac, and ambulatory surgery center.

“The building needed to be new to include many of the technological and electrical requirements that didn’t fit in the rest of the campus,” said Lang. “The facility also has a central café and conference area to provide services to the community.”

In addition, on a monthly basis, Summit physicians host discussions on current healthcare topics at the facility. In January, the focus was on preventive medicine. In February, the discussions were focused on heart health. “We’re getting the community involved. We don’t want our campus to be strictly an illness-oriented environment,” said Lang. “We want it to also focus on how our patients and community can maintain and improve their health.”

Gradual implementation
Prior to the move to the Berkley Heights campus in August 2006, Summit’s strategic plan called for the implementation of an EMR. As a practicing physician, Le Benger saw patients from outside practices come into his otolaryngology practice nervous, unsure of their entire medical history and even the kinds of medications they’d been taking. Now, when a patient comes from anywhere within the group’s 34 specialty practices, he can pull up the entire medical history.

“Labs, X-rays, and even external consults they had are all there for me to see now,” he said. “My patients can’t believe how fast and easy it is for me to pull up their information. They’re used to physicians on the outside who scribble information on paper charts. Having this EMR makes a big difference.”

The transition to an EMR was not without challenges, however. Many of Summit’s physicians have been with the practice for 30-plus years, and many were not comfortable with a computer. For the younger physicians that grew up and went through school with computers, the change simply meant improved workflow within their offices. But no matter the technological expertise of the physicians, implementing an EMR meant putting more responsibility on their shoulders.

“There is a lot more demand put on the physician with an EMR,” said Lang. “The office staff used to prepare all the charts and make sure everything was there, but now the physicians have to pull much of that information themselves.”

The key to the success of the transition was in the organization’s modular approach to the EMR integration. Summit first installed physician charting, then notes, and then results. Once those modules were up and running, outside patient records were scanned into the system, followed by X-rays. As of early March, Summit was implementing e-prescribing, which, according to Le Benger, will cut down on order errors.

“Our programs alert us to potential negative drug interactions, and it helps me because I can’t spell,” he said. “There was a lot of hesitation on the physician side, but I don’t think one doctor in this organization would have it any other way now. They know it helps them with their practices.”

The bottom line
In addition to completing the EMR implementation and developing centers of excellence to benchmark quality, Summit is looking to develop a call center. The goal is to have every call answered by a live voice and then triaged to someone who can handle scheduling appointments or answering questions regarding insurance issues, directions, or records. The phone call then would go to the physician office for a nurse triage or physician call.

“From our Press Ganey surveys, we learned that a major complaint of our patients was not getting through on the phones consistently,” said Lang. “The answer wasn’t adding people into the offices to answer phones—the problem was that there were questions the people in the office couldn’t answer.”

The proposed call center would address a myriad of patient issues so patients wouldn’t go through four or five people before finding their answers. Thirty-two of Summit’s internists and physicians are already on centralized scheduling so, just as when implementing the EMR, Summit will gradually bring all of its physicians onto the same system.

“From past experience, we know our culture works best when implementing change bit by bit and gradually gaining buy-in from our physicians,” said Lang. “We want to ensure we’re doing the right thing for our physicians because happy employees and happy physicians equal happy patients.”

“The first bullet point on our mission statement is the highest quality of care and service for our patients,” said Le Benger. “Bottom line, the most important aspect of our organization is our focus on quality.”