Improving routine use of clinical pathway decision support through integration of an EHR with a clinical library resource designed to provide evidence-based guidance within oncology workflows.

BACKGROUND: The rapid evolution, complexity, and specialization of oncology treatment makes it challenging for physicians to provide care based on the latest and best evidence. We hypothesized that physicians would use evidence-based trusted care pathways if they were easy to use and integrated into clinical workflow at the point of care. METHODS: Within a large integrated care delivery system, we assembled clinical experts to define and update drug treatment pathways, encoded them as flowcharts in an online library integrated with the electronic medical record, communicated expectations that clinicians would use these pathways for every eligible patient, and combined data from multiple sources to understand usage over time. RESULTS: We were able to achieve > 75% utilization of eligible protocols ordered through these pathways within two years, with > 90% of individual oncologists having consulted the pathway at least once, despite no requirements or external incentives associated with pathway usage. Feedback from users contributed to improvements and updates to the guidance. CONCLUSIONS: By making our clinical decision support easily accessible and actionable, we find that we have made considerable progress toward our goal of having physicians consult the latest evidence in their treatment decisions.

Adaptation of a Published Risk Model to Point-of-care Clinical Decision Support Tailored to Local Workflow.

Electronic clinical decision support can bring newly published knowledge to the point of care. However, local organizational buy-in, support for team workflows, IT system ease of use and other sociotechnical factors are needed to promote adoption. We successfully implemented a multi-variate cardiac risk stratification model from another institution into ours. We recreated the model and integrated it into our workflow, accessing it from our EHR with patient-specific data and facilitating clinical documentation if the user accepts the model results. Our clinical leaders championed the change and led educational dissemination efforts. We describe the ad-hoc social and technical collaboration needed to build and deploy the tool. The tool complements a clinical initiative within a community of practice, and is correlated with appropriate use of nuclear imaging.

Patient experiences of transitioning from hospital to home: an ethnographic quality improvement project.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about patient perspectives of the transition from hospital to home. OBJECTIVE: To develop a richly detailed, patient-centered view of patient and caregiver needs in the hospital-to-home transition. DESIGN: An ethnographic approach including participant observation and in-depth, semi-structured video recorded interviews. SETTING: Kaiser Permanente's Southern California, Colorado, and Hawaii regions. PATIENTS: Twenty-four adult inpatients hospitalized for a range of acute and chronic conditions and characterized by variety in diagnoses, illness severity, planned or unplanned hospitalization, age, and ability to self manage. RESULTS: During the hospital-to-home transition, patients and caregivers expressed or demonstrated experiences in 6 domains: 1) translating knowledge into safe, health-promoting actions at home; 2) inclusion of caregivers at every step of the transition process; 3) having readily available problem-solving resources; 4) feeling connected to and trusting providers; 5) transitioning from illness-defined experience to "normal" life; and 6) anticipating needs after discharge and making arrangements to meet them. The work of transitioning occurs for patients and caregivers in the hours and days after they return home and is fraught with challenges. CONCLUSIONS: Reducing readmissions will remain challenging without a broadened understanding of the types of support and coaching patients need after discharge. We are piloting strategies such as risk stratification and tailoring of care, a specialized phone number for recently discharged patients, standardized same-day discharge summaries to primary care providers, medication reconciliation, follow-up phone calls, and scheduling appointments before discharge.

The adoption gap: health information technology in small physician practices. Understanding office workflow can help realize the promise of technology.

Health information technology (HIT) can promote higher quality, lower costs, and increased patient and clinician satisfaction. Yet small practice settings (where the vast majority of patient care is provided) have been slow to adopt HIT products and services. Successful adoption requires close attention to office workflow, or how tasks are organized and resources used to achieve outcomes. HIT improvements in the small physician office setting are achieved through strong leadership, strategic planning, process reengineering, change management, and customizing IT systems to match and support desired office workflows and health care outcomes.