Based in Moultrie, Georgia, Colquitt Regional Medical Center is a 99-bed community-based teaching hospital. Colquitt Regional affords access to a variety of services including bariatric, obstetric, oncology, rehabilitation, and home health services. It also recently received its eleventh consecutive “A” Hospital Safety Score from The Leapfrog Group, a national patient safety watchdog, naming it as one of the safest hospitals in the nation.
Colquitt Regional Medical Center, a top healthcare provider in Southwest Georgia, was stuck in a paperwork nightmare. Patients were providing financial information before their appointments, only to repeat the process – and supplement with more data - when they arrived. Registrars printed two to five barcoded forms per patient, manually entered data, and scanned everything into the system - then rekeyed it all into MEDITECH. The process was slow, error prone, and expensive.
Megan Ford, Director of Patient Access, saw the toll: “The time- consuming, labor-intensive registration process was cumbersome, full of redundancies and had the potential for errors. I was also concerned about the amount of paper that was required from a cost and environmental standpoint.”
Colquitt’s team knew something had to change. They wanted a solution that would automate consent forms, capture signatures securely - even at the bedside - and cut out the paperwork chaos.
Enter Bottomline’s electronic forms automation. With eCapture powered by Logical Ink®, registrars could present electronic packets, capture compliant signatures, and collect data - all on tablets or computers. Nurses could access forms on Surface Pros, add favorites, and get demographic fields prefilled from MEDITECH. No more sifting through 500+ forms or chasing down missing info.
Cloquitt also opted to use Bottomline’s On-Demand Forms powered by MedEx® for a single, easy-to-use on demand interface for registrars to generate pre-populated, barcoded packets that could be printed or, through integration with Logical Ink, presented to patients for electronic signature. This web-based tech lets users access the applications online and requires no storage space on individual workstations.
For walk-ins: registrars now breeze through MEDITECH screens, and the system auto-selects the right forms. Patients see clear prompts for signatures and context sensitive fields based on their situation. No more guessing, no more, “where do I sign?” confusion. Patients can even read the forms before signing – something that wasn’t possible before. This tiny shift builds trust
For scheduled patients: pre-registration happens over the phone, so when patients arrive, everything’s ready. Forms are pre-populated and presented for e-signature. This means faster check-ins, happier patients, and less stress for staff.
On the floors: nurses aren’t drowning in paperwork anymore. They can use Surface Pro tablets to pull up consent forms at the bedside, skipping the hunt through 500+ forms since they can easily find the right “favorited” document, and have demographic fields auto-populated by MEDITECH.
There was even this surprise win: halfway through the implementation, Michael Nixon, Colquitt Systems Analyst, realized he could use Bottomline’s printing engine for check printing. That move eliminated the need for 19 types of pre-printed check stock – saving thousands. As Nixon put it, “PreCapture is a minimal application to worry about from an IT standpoint. Which is a nice thing. With patients using it, we don’t have as much to worry about.”
“The Bottomline solutions appealed to us due to ease of use, seamless integration into our existing systems and affordability. We concluded that everything about Bottomline made for a really good business decision. In fact, one thing I was not expecting is that the product basically paid for itself in the first six months.”
Bill Bishop, Colquitt, Chief Information Officer
Colquitt didn’t stop at the hospital doors. They enhanced the at-home portion of the patient experience as well. With PreCapture powered by Logical Ink, patients now complete registration forms before they even arrive. No more waiting at the outpatient window. The pre-registration team launches forms from MEDITECH, emails them, and patients fill out at home. On-site teams can even monitor document status.
With smart coaching and awareness campaigns, adoption of the pre-registration process has skyrocketed, even among Colquitt’s farming and elderly patient base. Press Ganey surveys now include comments like: “I like finding my forms at home”.