What to Expect with HPF Upgrade to 16.0

[Brandi Boren]

I am sure everyone is thinking what I am if you have ever been through an upgrade with any electronic system: what will go wrong? Nothing ever goes as planned no matter how well you are prepared. With that being said we are getting ready to upgrade to HPF 16.0 in August. So with all the skepticism I have about upgrades I am kind of excited about this upgrade. There are lots of new features that I think everyone will benefit from.

There are two aspects of this upgrade that I am particularly happy about. We all get so tired of reading through dictations to find one word or a sentence or having to listen to a dictation and not understanding what is being said. With this upgrade there will be full text indexing and search. This means that we can search for that one word and it will find it for us in the dictation. How awesome will that be! For all my tech-savvy people you will love this new feature. With this upgrade there will be no need for Java. You all know how much of a pain Java can be to deal with. Nothing works without it and if you have the wrong version or too many versions it will not work. I am sure the tech departments in everybody’s hospital is as happy as ours is about this new feature.

Just a few other changes with this upgrade. Horizon Patient Folder is changing names to McKesson Patient Folder. After several years of HPF this will be a little hard to adjust too. There will be real time data and new scorecards so no more waiting for midnight closeouts. ROI will be upgrading for better reports, statements, and payments. There will be an app for all Apple users for their IPhones and IPads so that the doctors can go right to their deficiencies without having to remote into a computer or go to a website.

As you can see there are many new changes to come with this upgrade and I am excited to see and try out all the new features. As always I will remain skeptical until all the bugs have been worked out and the system is running smooth, but does any system really run smooth all of the time? No, but I am glad because it’s job security for me!

Brandi Boren has worked for Jennie Stuart Medical Center in Medical Records for seven years and has four years experience with McKesson including Horizon Patient Folder, Paragon Medical Records, and Webstation for Physicians.

The views and opinions published reflect those of the author and are not reflective of the Jennie Stuart Medical Center.

[Brandi Boren]

We have not had the upgrade yet. We recently had a Paragon upgrade that pushed HPF back. I am not sure when the scheduled date will be for the upgrade, but I will be glad to share with you when that time comes.

[Linda S Garrison, MPA, RHIA]

Brandi - how did the upgrade go?  Did you do it August?  I'm new to the position as director of HIM, and relatively new to HPF (4 months) - would love to share experiences with you.  Linda