Case Study: George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates

The George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates (MFA) is the largest multi-specialty physician practice in Washington, D.C. Under its affiliation with George Washington University, MFA physicians are actively engaged in teaching medical students, residents and fellows. All of MFA's 41 specialties are conveniently located in a single 316,000 square-foot facility, and the practice treats an average of 4,600 patients per day. To efficiently handle the high patient volume, MFA has invested heavily in its information technology infrastructure, implementing both electronic health record (EHR) and practice management (PM) solutions to automate processes.

Like many practices, the demands on MFA's administrative staff varied greatly depending upon patient volumes. "There were long lines of patients waiting to check in during our busy periods because we couldn't get enough staff to handle the volume, and then we were overstaffed during the slow periods," said Vandana Toteja, director of healthcare informatics for MFA.

In addition to the long lines, the process of entering and modifying patient demographic and insurance information at the time of check in was inherently error prone and negatively affected billing.

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