Nashville’s General Hospital wants federal stimulus dollars to cover the cost of upgrading its information systems. But to make that happen, the city will have to front the money, and get paid back for it later.
General Hospital is about 80 percent of the way through an overhaul of its patient information system, and needs just shy of three million dollars to finish the transition.
Hospital CEO Reginald Coopwood says General qualifies for more than enough stimulus dollars to cover that cost. It would allow doctors to track patient status and order treatment through a centralized computer system.
“By turning on a fully electronic medical record, where a physician clicks on this drug, this dose at this time, and that order goes to the nurse and the pharmacist, you’ve reduced a couple steps where error could occur.”
But there’s a catch. General Hospital has to finish installing the system before it can receive the stimulus dollars as a reimbursement. Coopwood says his hospital doesn’t have the money for that on hand. So he’s asked Metro Finance to look for a way to front the hospital some 2.7 million dollars.
Coopwood says that may not be possible. But if General is going to get that stimulus money, it has to finish the overhaul in the next eighteen months.
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