As clinician frustration with health information technology mounts and workarounds proliferate, hospitals have started documenting physician and nurse complaints and pressuring vendors for improvements. HIT upgrades and enhancements must take into account the needs of highly mobile physicians and nurses and not take away time from patient care.
Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia, Calif., transforms clinical workflows through application assessments, optimization assessments and process improvements. Part of that is to strive to follow best practices and to plan for upgrades and enhancements to software. “We have work teams and physician advisory teams to do workflow reviews relating to assessments, order sets and documentation to streamline and enhance productivity,” says Cindy Peterson, vice president and chief information officer. “We are now in the process of updating our electronic health record to a more patient-centric system designed for use on mobile networks and devices, along with the upgrade of our technical infrastructure to accommodate the mobile platform shift and physical expansion of the hospital campus.”
An analytical tool set pulls information from many sources such as the Meditech EHR, the costing system, budgeting, California's Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development, and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The reports and dashboards on utilization, quality of care, performance, comparative data and process improvement measurements are critical to improving quality of care and patient outcomes.
Checklist
- Follow best practices on upgrades and enhancements to software.
- Form work teams and physician advisory teams to do workflow reviews on assessments, order sets and documentation.
- Update EHR system to a more patient-centric system designed for mobility.
- Use an analytical tool set that pulls information from many sources for process improvement measurements.
