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Edoc Article - August 7

The eDoc project at Cambridge Memorial Hospital aimed to streamline their electronic documentation system which had become cluttered with obsolete screens and interventions over many years of additions. Through careful review and input from clinical staff, they reduced admission assessments from 19 screens to focused assessments for specialty areas. They also removed over 1,700 outdated interventions from over 4,600 in the system. Additionally, they decreased care plans by 35% while maintaining patient-specific care. The project engaged clinical staff as champions and subject matter experts to help ensure the new system met needs and gained positive user feedback.

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98 views2 pages

Edoc Article - August 7

The eDoc project at Cambridge Memorial Hospital aimed to streamline their electronic documentation system which had become cluttered with obsolete screens and interventions over many years of additions. Through careful review and input from clinical staff, they reduced admission assessments from 19 screens to focused assessments for specialty areas. They also removed over 1,700 outdated interventions from over 4,600 in the system. Additionally, they decreased care plans by 35% while maintaining patient-specific care. The project engaged clinical staff as champions and subject matter experts to help ensure the new system met needs and gained positive user feedback.

Uploaded by

kaylekaypr
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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eDoc A Journey of Continuous Care Improvement

By Kayleigh Klajnscek, Communications Intern

CMHs eDoc Champions

Our electronic patient record system was like an overgrown garden, filled with weeds and nearly unmanageable, said Paul Lacey, RN at Cambridge Memorial Hospital (CMH), of the old electronic system, There were a lot of add-ons over the years and this is what brought us to begin the Meditech electronic documentation refresh project (eDoc) in 2012. Paul, along with Louise Bailey, RPN and application specialist, and their clinical informatics student Nejla Ozkan, began the project in September, 2012, to refresh CMHs electronic documentation for nursing and allied health professionals. The goal of the eDoc project is to ultimately have staff spend more time caring for patients and less time at the computer. One of the key priorities was to reduce the number of admission assessments. Larger institutions often manage with one or two admission screens. We had 19, explains Paul, Many of these screens were obsolete and inefficiently used the nurses time. CMH now only has one general admission assessment, and unique admission assessments for specialty areas, such as Mental Health, Paediatrics, Obstetrics, and Medical Day Care. When redesigning documentation screens, a lot of thought was put into how the information is going to be used and by whom, describes Paul. In some cases, queries were created so that they could be used in quality monitoring and improvement.

Admission assessments werent the only source of obsolete information. It was found that within the available interventions many were duplicated or outdated. Through careful review by the project leaders, over 1,700 interventions were removed from an initial list of over 4,600. Anything that we have removed from the system can be turned back on, users just have to contact us to do so, says Paul of the process. This allows the project to continue to be relevant even as changes occur in the health care field. A new process has been created that will allow new documentation requests to be reviewed and approved prior to being implemented. It is hoped that this will prevent the overgrown garden effect, and keep available documentation current and relevant. CMH also had over 100 patient care plans in the system that created a challenge to maintain and keep updated as requirements changed. Each clinical department reviewed the interventions in their care plans, updating and streamlining them to reflect current practice. Once this was completed, through the eDoc project, CMH saw a 35% reduction in care plans, while still being able to provide patient specific care. Through the project, Paul and his team worked with 18 unit eDoc Champions, other institutions, and allied health leads to determine the most efficient system for users. Because this was promoted as a clinical project rather than an Information Management Technology project, staff engagement as subject matter experts ensured project success. All of the eDoc initiatives have generated a lot of positive feedback from end users. The project challenged me to further explore eHealth, said Alina Labau, RN, Nursing Resource Pool, it has greatly impacted my nursing care. Another area of improvement is how I approach change management among my co-workers. The knowledge I acquired as an eDoc Champion also allowed me to improve my own documenting approach.

eDoc by the numbers

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