Improvement Stories:
Fingerprints Prove That Hawthorn Is on the Cutting Edge
Hawthorn Medical Associates in Dartmouth, MA serves more than 130,000 patients each year. The practice switched from paper records to electronic medical records (EMRs). And, they did so on the same day that they moved into a new building. To ensure the privacy of patient’s, each doctor’s computer has a fingerprint recognition device. This means only the patient’s doctor can securely access their patients’ EMRs.
For their efforts, Hawthorn won the Partners HealthCare Nesson Award for Excellence. This is the highest award for innovation in medical practice and collaboration among doctors in pursuit of excellence that a physician practice can receive at within our organization. Partners HealthCare feels that the added safety and efficiency benefits of EMRs are well worth the effort required to move from the routine paper record to the electronic one. In fact, Partners HealthCare now requires all primary care doctors to adopt EMRs by the end of 2008. And, by the end of 2009, all specialists will also need to adopt EMRs.