Cibola General Hospital gains national recognition

By Jim Tiffin
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Cibola General Hospital has made national headlines by being placed on a list of the most improved top 25 hospitals nationwide which have used information technology to enhance patient care.

The American Hospital Association's "Most Wired" magazine selected the hospital and published an article on the hospital's efforts to improve patient care and minimize errors by using technology.

"Most of these kind of awards go to larger hospitals," Ashley said. "People think smaller hospitals don't have higher technology. This proves them wrong."

All of the patient care studies show using electronic medical records reduces mistakes, he said.

The magazine does an annual survey of hospitals, Ashley said, and CGH was recognized this year based on information returned in the survey.

Information about a patient, nursing notes, lab, X-ray, doctors orders, are all put into computers at the hospital.

When the doctor comes in, he can pull up a patient's record on the computer and everything about the patient is there overnight pharmacy medicines, what the nurses have recorded, lab work it's all in the computer not on paper anymore, he said.

Several people at the hospital are instrumental in bringing the hospital to this level, Ashley said.

"When I brought this information to them, I expected some resistance and there was some.

"We sent Jeff Rimel, Dorcas Yates, R.N., and Carmen Guitierrez to some other hospitals and they came back excited," he said. Rimel is the hospital's chief financial officer and Guitierrez is the clinical infomatics coordinator. Yates is the director of nursing.

"Everyone got on board with this project, but these three are the ones who made it work," Ashley said.

The project began in earnest in 2000, and by the end of this year, Ashley said the hospital will have spent near $700,000 on information technology.

Lab work comes out of the testing tube into a computer and is sent electronically to the nurses station after a technician verifies it.

The hospital board has been supportive, agreeing to spend the money on the project, he said.

Getting the director of nurses to be convinced about the technology was not very hard, although initially she had some reservations.

Physicians are now also using the system and wanting more technology.

Eventually there may be bedside medications, photos of patients in the system, and increased communications, all through the use of 21st century technology.

An expansion of the hospital is planned sometime during the next two years, to increase the space for radiology, laboratory and possibly a permanent MRI suite, Ashley said.

In addition to all this, plans are in the works to have an automated triage, patient tracking and nursing and physician charting system in the emergency room.

None of that has been approved by the board yet, but it is in the planning stages and a probable reality.

To contact reporter Jim Tiffin, call (505) 287-2197 or e-mail: tiffin.independent@yahoo.com.