Trustees to consider $5m contract

The Ector County Hospital District board is scheduled to consider taking a giant leap toward the digitalization of its medical record system during its monthly meeting Tuesday.

If approved by the board, the hospital would appropriate more than $5 million for the purchase of computerized physician order system that MCH Chief Executive Officer Bill Webster called "the last major component" in the hospitals ongoing push to completely computerize its medical records by October 2010.

"We've been working on this incrementally for years," he said. "The last big piece of the puzzle to get to what would be considered an ‘electronic medical record system' is the computerized physician order entry piece."

The $5 million price tag for this piece of the hospital's digital medical record makeover - what Webster called a "major undertaking" - however, may be offset when MCH gets its piece of the federal stimulus package's $19 billion for helping the America's health care records streamline and go digital.

During the next five years, Webster said, MCH expects to receive a total of $5.4 million from this stimulus funding.

And there are other technological considerations on the board's agenda for Tuesday, including the possible allocation of $126,484 for computer software that will monitor the hospital's efforts to contain the spread of infection.

Another item on the agenda calls for the board to consider re-enlisting an outside medical recruitment company to help it hire 10 nurses for its emergency department, a contract Webster said is worth about $370,000.

He said the hospital contracted the company last year to find 15 experienced critical care nurses and was pleased with the results.

Also on the board's agenda:

>> Appointment of the board's committees.

>> A $3,600 lease agreement renewal to dispose of medical waste.

>> Annual insurance renewal.

>> Sale of about $20,000 worth of hospital property.

>> The review of a ProCare agreement with an outside company to review medical images on an ad hoc basis.

>> Formalizing a $7,000 monthly contract agreement with an Austin-based electro-physiologist to bring his services to the Basin several times per month.

The meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. in the hospital's second-floor boardroom.