sinai in the news
Two Sisters and Forty Years of Medical Records at Mount Sinai
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 2008
TGretna Hall and Ollie Powell are a testament to the changes that have occurred in Health Information Management, formerly “medical Records.”
The sisters began working in the Medical Records Department at Mount Sinai Hospital more than 40 years ago. At that time, patient records and related documents were either handwritten or typed on a typewriter. Ollie, who joined the hospital in 1966, used to write detailed information in a logbook every time she received or sent out a patient’s charts. Gretna, who came to Sinai a year later, recalls checking index cards for patient information.
Says Kathy Sauer, Director of Health Information Management for Sinai Health System, "Now the Sinai Health System Health Information Management does its own bar coding and creates its own forms. Index cards are no longer a thought. At Schwab, residents and attending physicians use voice recognition instead of dictation enabling instant access to important patient documentation. The Master Patient Index (MPI) is computerized. Patient charts are not “sent out” in paper format; they are available online after discharge. Front end speech recognition is used at Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital, a member of Sinai Health System. The physicians dictate and their dictations are seen immediately on screen and can be edited by the physician if needed. Sinai’s dictations are outsourced to a vendor that utilizes backend speech recognition. All dictations are electronically sent to the medical record and electronically signed."
The advent of technology brought many changes throughout the hospital but one thing has remained a constant for the sister – their attachment to Mount Sinai and their fellow employees.
"We love working here, and we get along with everybody -- including each other," Gretna says.
"This is our second home – our home away from home," Ollie says.
