Health Information Management

Study: EMR checklists improve compliance, promote care initiatives

HIM-HIPAA Insider, April 21, 2014

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to HIM-HIPAA Insider!

The term "data rich and information poor" has been used to describe EMRs. Patient records are often packed with data, but that data is less than helpful if it is difficult to find at a moment's notice.

 
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford (LPCH) in California recently conducted a study intended to improve access to data in medical records. The study revealed that integrating enhanced patient checklists into EMRs and implementing a unit-wide dashboard can improve compliance with evidence-based best practices and can promote care initiatives.
 
"There's tons of data in the EMR but it's overwhelming and almost useless to the provider if it can't be brought to them at the right point in their workflow in a meaningful way," says Natalie Pageler, MD, MEd, medical director of clinical informatics and a pediatric intensivist at Stanford Children's Health. "What we were really trying to do is take all of that data that's been dumped in there now and pull it out at the right places in their workflow to support the decision-making." Pageler is one of the authors and coordinators of the study.
 
Prior to the study, LPCH was part of a national collaborative that sought to examine compliance with best practice bundles for central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI), says Deborah Franzon, MD, clinical associate professor of pediatrics and medical director for the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) at LPCH. "It was often very difficult to search through the medical record to find some of the needed aspects of the bundle to determine whether they've been done or whether we had any really meaningful way to prompt the physicians and nurses to comply with aspects of the bundle," she explains.
 
Continue reading "Study: EMR checklists improve compliance, promote care initiatives" on the HCPro website. Subscribers to Medical Records Briefing have free access to this article in the May issue.



Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to HIM-HIPAA Insider!

    Briefings on APCs

  • Briefings on APCs

    Worried about the complexities of the new rules under OPPS and APCs? Briefings on APCs helps you understand the new rules...

  • HIM Briefings

    Guiding Health Information Management professionals through the continuously changing field of medical records and toward a...

  • Briefings on Coding Compliance Strategies

    Submitting improper Medicare documentation can lead to denial of fees, payback, fines, and increased diligence from payers...

  • Briefings on HIPAA

    How can you minimize the impact of HIPAA? Subscribe to Briefings on HIPAA, your health information management resource for...

  • APCs Insider

    This HTML-based e-mail newsletter provides weekly tips and advice on the new ambulatory payment classifications regulations...

Most Popular