Why are we here?

Anupam suggested that there is a gap in Advocate's physician leadership around information technology to support data transfer across care settings. The group represents a subset of users working with different electronic medical record platforms that could provide the organization with input on how to refine its information technology offerings to improve clinical care delivery.

Information flows after hospital discharge

Anupam presented how he believes outpatient providers are notified by our hospital systems today. CliniCare has some automated notifications flowing into tasks for clinic staff (noted in the updated diagram above). eClinicalWorks also has some automatic notifications of patient discharges outside the MCHC DIRECT mailboxes (not noted). Dreyer has built multiple interfaces with the hospitals where its patients tend to go, but they have no DIRECT mailboxes now. Any Advocate inpatient information has to be faxed to them and then scanned into the electronic medical record.

Anupam was able to pilot the CareConnection-to-eClinicalWorks functionality with Stasia. Stasia's office staff could then directly upload the patient records without printing, scanning and mapping to the patient's chart.

[ ] Anupam to continue to explore opportunities to use DIRECT to transfer informatoin across medical record platforms.

Pre-operative information flow

Anupam walked through the different steps that a surgeon or proceduralist might have to undergo to have a patient complete an outpatient procedure at Advocate if DIRECT messaging was enabled. There may be some value in this new workflow for eClinicalWorks and CliniCare.

[ ] Stasia to investigate the work it would take to make facility destinations in eClinicalWorks to enable this "referral" functionality.

CareNet+ optimizations

Most outpatient providers who manage patients after they have been discharged from an Advocate inpatient facility interact with CareNet+. Today, the system includes lots of information including laboratory values, free-text reports, physician documentation as well as links to radiology and cardiology images.

Anupam proposed patient list functionality that would include patients attributed to a physician or physician's office based on insurance assigment, patient declarations at Advocate facilities, and Advocate's own attribution rules. The group wanted to get more information on the system's ability to accept feedback from end users (e.g., "This patient doesn't belong to me") and how might we address patient reassignments month-over-month, but information would have value. The lists may also highlight opportunities to improve the emergency room and hospitalization notification process as some users believe the system is unreliable.

For CareNet+ Inbox functionality, the group agreed to explore hyperlinking to a "neutral" DIRECT mailbox rather than using MCHC's mailbox created by Advocate to reduce the number of mailboxes physicians and office staff would have to manage.

For the Patient Care view, the group was interested in learning more about storing information that may have value across care settings, including:

• Care teams
• Care plans
• Facilitating chart review across documents from different EMRs rather than opening each document individually

Meeting frequency

The group agreed to meet every other month on Tuesday evenings between 6 & 7 PM CST.

Next meeting October 18th 6-7 PM CST via Skype and telephone call.

Click here to see minutes from other meetings.