Performance Measures Using Electronic Health Records: Five Case Studies

Presents the experiences of five provider organizations in developing, testing, and implementing four types of electronic quality-of-care indicators based on EHR data. Discusses challenges, and compares results with those from traditional indicators

Computerization of workflows, guidelines and care pathways: a review of implementation challenges for process-oriented health information systems

There is a need to integrate the various theoretical frameworks and formalisms for modeling clinical guidelines, workflows, and pathways, in order to move beyond providing support for individual clinical decisions and toward the provision of process-oriented, patient-centered, health information systems (HIS). In this review, we analyze the challenges in developing process-oriented HIS that formally model guidelines, workflows, and care pathways. A qualitative meta-synthesis was performed on studies published in English between 1995 and 2010 that addressed the modeling process and reported the exposition of a new methodology, model, system implementation, or system architecture. Thematic analysis, principal component analysis (PCA) and data visualisation techniques were used to identify and cluster the underlying implementation ‘challenge’ themes. One hundred and eight relevant studies were selected for review. Twenty-five underlying ‘challenge’ themes were identified. These were clustered into 10 distinct groups, from which a conceptual model of the implementation process was developed. We found that the development of systems supporting individual clinical decisions is evolving toward the implementation of adaptable care pathways on the semantic web, incorporating formal, clinical, and organizational ontologies, and the use of workflow management systems. These architectures now need to be implemented and evaluated on a wider scale within clinical settings

Design and introduction of a quality of life assessment and practice support system: perspectives from palliative care settings

Background: Quality of life (QOL) assessment instruments, including patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and patient-reported experience measures (PREMs), are increasingly promoted as a means of enabling clinicians to enhance person-centered care. However, integration of these instruments into palliative care clinical practice has been inconsistent. This study focused on the design of an electronic Quality of Life and Practice Support System (QPSS) prototype and its initial use in palliative inpatient and home care settings. Our objectives were to ascertain desired features of a QPSS prototype and the experiences of clinicians, patients, and family caregivers in regard to the initial introduction of a QPSS in palliative care, interpreting them in context. Methods: We applied an integrated knowledge translation approach in two stages by engaging a total of 71 clinicians, 18 patients, and 17 family caregivers in palliative inpatient and home care settings. Data for Stage I were collected via 12 focus groups with clinicians to ascertain desirable features of a QPSS. Stage II involved 5 focus groups and 24 interviews with clinicians and 35 interviews with patients or family caregivers during initial implementation of a QPSS. The focus groups and interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using the qualitative methodology of interpretive description. Results: Desirable features focused on hardware (lightweight, durable, and easy to disinfect), software (simple, user-friendly interface, multi-linguistic, integration with e-health systems), and choice of assessment instruments that would facilitate a holistic assessment. Although patient and family caregiver participants were predominantly enthusiastic, clinicians expressed a mixture of enthusiasm, receptivity, and concern regarding the use of a QPSS. The analyses revealed important contextual considerations, including: (a) logistical, technical, and aesthetic considerations regarding the QPSS as a technology, (b) diversity in knowledge, skills, and attitudes of clinicians, patients, and family caregivers regarding the integration of electronic QOL assessments in care, and (c) the need to understand organizational context and priorities in using QOL assessment data. Conclusion: The process of designing and integrating a QPSS in palliative care for patients with life-limiting conditions and their family caregivers is complex and requires extensive consultation with clinicians, administrators, patients, and family caregivers to inform successful implementation

Designing an automated clinical decision support system to match clinical practice guidelines for opioid therapy for chronic pain

Abstract Background Opioid prescribing for chronic pain is common and controversial, but recommended clinical practices are followed inconsistently in many clinical settings. Strategies for increasing adherence to clinical practice guideline recommendations are needed to increase effectiveness and reduce negative consequences of opioid prescribing in chronic pain patients. Methods Here we describe the process and outcomes of a project to operationalize the 2003 VA/DOD Clinical Practice Guideline for Opioid Therapy for Chronic Non-Cancer Pain into a computerized decision support system (DSS) to encourage good opioid prescribing practices during primary care visits. We based the DSS on the existing ATHENA-DSS. We used an iterative process of design, testing, and revision of the DSS by a diverse team including guideline authors, medical informatics experts, clinical content experts, and end-users to convert the written clinical practice guideline into a computable algorithm to generate patient-specific recommendations for care based upon existing information in the electronic medical record (EMR), and a set of clinical tools. Results The iterative revision process identified numerous and varied problems with the initially designed system despite diverse expert participation in the design process. The process of operationalizing the guideline identified areas in which the guideline was vague, left decisions to clinical judgment, or required clarification of detail to insure safe clinical implementation. The revisions led to workable solutions to problems, defined the limits of the DSS and its utility in clinical practice, improved integration into clinical workflow, and improved the clarity and accuracy of system recommendations and tools. Conclusions Use of this iterative process led to development of a multifunctional DSS that met the approval of the clinical practice guideline authors, content experts, and clinicians involved in testing. The process and experiences described provide a model for development of other DSSs that translate written guidelines into actionable, real-time clinical recommendations.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78267/1/1748-5908-5-26.xmlhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78267/2/1748-5908-5-26.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78267/3/1748-5908-5-26-S3.TIFFhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78267/4/1748-5908-5-26-S2.TIFFhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/78267/5/1748-5908-5-26-S1.TIFFPeer Reviewe

Communication interventions in adult and pediatric oncology: A scoping review and analysis of behavioral targets

BackgroundImproving communication requires that clinicians and patients change their behaviors. Interventions might be more successful if they incorporate principles from behavioral change theories. We aimed to determine which behavioral domains are targeted by communication interventions in oncology.MethodsSystematic search of literature indexed in Ovid Medline, Embase, Scopus, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Clinicaltrials.gov (2000-October 2018) for intervention studies targeting communication behaviors of clinicians and/or patients in oncology. Two authors extracted the following information: population, number of participants, country, number of sites, intervention target, type and context, study design. All included studies were coded based on which behavioral domains were targeted, as defined by Theoretical Domains Framework.FindingsEighty-eight studies met inclusion criteria. Interventions varied widely in which behavioral domains were engaged. Knowledge and skills were engaged most frequently (85%, 75/88 and 73%, 64/88, respectively). Fewer than 5% of studies engaged social influences (3%, 3/88) or environmental context/resources (5%, 4/88). No studies engaged reinforcement. Overall, 7/12 behavioral domains were engaged by fewer than 30% of included studies. We identified methodological concerns in many studies. These 88 studies reported 188 different outcome measures, of which 156 measures were reported by individual studies.ConclusionsMost communication interventions target few behavioral domains. Increased engagement of behavioral domains in future studies could support communication needs in feasible, specific, and sustainable ways. This study is limited by only including interventions that directly facilitated communication interactions, which excluded stand-alone educational interventions and decision-aids. Also, we applied stringent coding criteria to allow for reproducible, consistent coding, potentially leading to underrepresentation of behavioral domains

The computerized medical record as a tool for clinical governance in australian primary care

Background: Computerized medical records (CMR) are used in most Australian general practices. Although CMRs have the capacity to amalgamate and provide data to the clinician about their standard of care, there is little research on the way in which they may be used to support clinical governance: the process of ensuring quality and accountability that incorporates the obligation that patients are treated according to best evidence. Objective: The objective of this study was to explore the capability, capacity, and acceptability of CMRs to support clinical governance. Methods: We conducted a realist review of the role of seven CMR systems in implementing clinical governance, developing a four-level maturity model for the CMR. We took Australian primary care as the context, CMR to be the mechanism, and looked at outcomes for individual patients, localities, and for the population in terms of known evidence-based surrogates or true outcome measures. Results: The lack of standardization of CMRs makes national and international benchmarking challenging. The use of the CMR was largely at level two of our maturity model, indicating a relatively simple system in which most of the process takes place outside of the CMR, and which has little capacity to support benchmarking, practice comparisons, and population-level activities. Although national standards for coding and projects for record access are proposed, they are not operationalized. Conclusions: The current CMR systems can support clinical governance activities; however, unless the standardization and data quality issues are addressed, it will not be possible for current systems to work at higher levels

Knowledge structuring-Knowledge domination. Two interrelated concepts

“Sociology for me is not only about the big institutions, such as governments, organizations, business firms or societies as a whole. It is very much about the individual and our individual experiences. We come to understand ourselves much better through grasping the wider social forces that influence our lives.” ( Anthony Giddens, published at www.polity.co.uk, a leading social science and humanities publisher. ) This quotation helps identify one reason for integrating ideas about knowledge management with concepts from Anthony Giddens structuration theory in the theoretical framework that I use as an analytical tool in this research. Structuration theory concerns itself with the “social forces that influence our lives” and these forces interest me. In the same article Giddens continuous: ”We live in a world of quite dramatic change…There are three major sets of changes happening in contemporary societies and it is the task of sociology to analyze what they mean for our lives today. First there is globalisation….The second big influence is that of technological change. Information technology is altering many of the ways in which we work and in which we live. The nature of the jobs people do, for example, has been transformed….The third fundamental set of changes is in our everyday lives. Our lives are structured less by the past than by our anticipated future”. In this paper I agure that there is a continous structuring going on in society. I therefore concern myself with a pair of twin concepts that are interrelated. The first one is knowledge structuring; the second is knowledge domination. These two concepts are of vital importance when trying to understand, assess and monitor implications of transformations of work processes and tools at work.Knowledge structuring; knowledge domination; knowledge management; structuration theory; cognitive theories; transformations; information technology; globalisation.

Live usability testing of two complex clinical decision support tools: Observational study

© 2019 Journal of Medical Internet Research. All rights reserved. Background: Potential of the electronic health records (EHR) and clinical decision support (CDS) systems to improve the practice of medicine has been tempered by poor design and the resulting burden they place on providers. CDS is rarely tested in the real clinical environment. As a result, many tools are hard to use, placing strain on providers and resulting in low adoption rates. The existing CDS usability literature relies primarily on expert opinion and provider feedback via survey. This is the first study to evaluate CDS usability and the provider-computer-patient interaction with complex CDS in the real clinical environment. Objective: This study aimed to further understand the barriers and facilitators of meaningful CDS usage within a real clinical context. Methods: This qualitative observational study was conducted with 3 primary care providers during 6 patient care sessions. In patients with the chief complaint of sore throat, a CDS tool built with the Centor Score was used to stratify the risk of group A Streptococcus pharyngitis. In patients with a chief complaint of cough or upper respiratory tract infection, a CDS tool built with the Heckerling Rule was used to stratify the risk of pneumonia. During usability testing, all human-computer interactions, including audio and continuous screen capture, were recorded using the Camtasia software. Participants\u27 comments and interactions with the tool during clinical sessions and participant comments during a postsession brief interview were placed into coding categories and analyzed for generalizable themes. Results: In the 6 encounters observed, primary care providers toggled between addressing either the computer or the patient during the visit. Minimal time was spent listening to the patient without engaging the EHR. Participants mostly used the CDS tool with the patient, asking questions to populate the calculator and discussing the results of the risk assessment; they reported the ability to do this as the major benefit of the tool. All providers were interrupted during their use of the CDS tool by the need to refer to other sections of the chart. In half of the visits, patients\u27 clinical symptoms challenged the applicability of the tool to calculate the risk of bacterial infection. Primary care providers rarely used the incorporated incentives for CDS usage, including progress notes and patient instructions. Conclusions: Live usability testing of these CDS tools generated insights about their role in the patient-provider interaction. CDS may contribute to the interaction by being simultaneously viewed by the provider and patient. CDS can improve usability and lessen the strain it places on providers by being short, flexible, and customizable to unique provider workflow. A useful component of CDS is being as widely applicable as possible and ensuring that its functions represent the fastest way to perform a particular task

Committed to Safety: Ten Case Studies on Reducing Harm to Patients

Presents case studies of healthcare organizations, clinical teams, and learning collaborations to illustrate successful innovations for improving patient safety nationwide. Includes actions taken, results achieved, lessons learned, and recommendations