Related Links

Web Seminars

Catherine Bruno has an ambitious vision for Eastern Maine Healthcare Systems, a seven-hospital, $872 million organization based in Brewer. "We'd like all the hospitals at stage 7," the vice president and CIO says, referencing the highest rung on the EHR continuum established by HIMSS Analytics. The health system has invested heavily-$75 million over the last seven years - toward that goal. Last October, it completed the first phase of installing a standardized clinical information system, from Cerner Corp, Kansas City, Mo., across all its facilities. The flagship hospital, Eastern Maine Medical Center, has deployed CPOE, qualifying it as EMHS' first Stage 4 entry.

On Determining a CPOE Timetable

We've developed a readiness assessment tool. Our member hospitals use the survey to understand the resources needed. We ask how many clinicians are using the computer, how standardized is the care. If you have a standard admission order set for a particular diagnosis, you can preprogram the system to support it.

On the Difficulty of Adopting CPOE

You can't just put in a CPOE system out of the box. At Eastern Maine Medical Center, we did over 100 workflow designs to prepare. If you have a radiology exam order, what happens to it? Whose work list does it show up on? CPOE requires significant input. We logged 27,000 staff hours to put in the system.

On the Limits of Universal Builds

It is not that simple to use the standardized sets we built at Eastern Maine Medical Center at the other hospitals. We have no standardized medication formulary. However, we are trying to build one that would enable us to create an order set and move it to another hospital.

On a Hard Lesson Learned

We did not do a good enough job analyzing workflow at Eastern Maine Medical Center for CPOE in the cardiac cath lab. We did not adequately engage the cardiologists. We had to do a rapid redesign of the system‹it took six months. Analyzing workflow is particularly important for physicians.

On Measuring Progress

You want to prove the value of the system. We measured how long it took to place a medication order on paper to actually getting it dispensed. After we went to CPOE, it went from 211 minutes to 24 minutes. You need to figure out where you think the technology will provide value, and measure it before and after the implementation.

(c) 2009 Health Data Management and SourceMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

http://www.healthdatamanagment.com/ http://www.sourcemedia.com/

@