Hays Medical Center of Kansas has found that using a scripting software purchased three years ago has paid off in the form of "hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of man hours" and improved patient care.
When the hospital purchased the Boston WorkStation, a scripting tool from Boston Software Systems, the bill was about $25,000, according to Bill Overbey, chief information officer and chief financial officer for Hays Medical Center.
Overbey said the system has helped the hospital improve its patient care. "It creates less administrative work for physicians and nurses to do and it makes life better for a lot of people."
The system is used to do a lot of one-time type projects - building dictionaries within the MEDITECH system, scripting down time reports, building scripts for billing, said Overbey.
Hays also uses BWS as the backbone of its disaster recovery plan for MEDITECH system. It can transfer information in and out of the difficult program and the 25-30 percent of hospitals that use it are always looking for tools they can use with it. The hospital hasn't experienced any problems with Boston WorkStation, said Overbey.
BWS is sold on a per-license basis, starting at $6,000.
"The cost of the software depends upon what you're trying to accomplish," Margaret Mayer, director of marketing for Boston Software Systems, said. Three licensing options are available: a Development license writes scripts; a Runtime license runs script, but cannot be used to create new scripts; a Site license can be based in one place in building, but used in multiple departments throughout the company.
"Boston WorkStation is primarily marketed to the healthcare sector, labs, and physician offices, anyone that has to move information from one application to another and doesn't want to have someone sitting there to do it," Mayer said.
BWS is also used internationally, in the UK, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand.