Ask Matthew Sprunger, M.D., how DuPont Hospital got to nearly universal adoption of CPOE by physicians, and he'll say, "the CLIC." It stands for Clinical Informatics Committee.
It's more than just another resume builder for its physician members, however. The committee has proven to be an effective management tool in building, if not gently prodding, medical staff acceptance of I.T. tools in the inpatient setting, adds Mike Schatzlein, M.D., the CEO of Lutheran Health Network, which includes DuPont. "The medical executive committees at each hospital empowered Matt's group to set adoption timelines," the CEO says. "It was not the administration sending out a deadline."
The CLIC spawned various sub-groups that tackled aspects of CPOE. A Clinical Content and Review Committee, for example, approved content for order sets. "When DuPont first opened, we had 50 normal newborn order sets," he recalls. "The content was similar, but the nurse had to remember, 'Well, is this Doctor A, or Doctor B, or Doctor C placing the order?' Now there is one normal newborn order set."
The CLIC and its sub-committees rely on physician volunteers, Sprunger says. "A lot of the work has been done by doctors who really want to make sure that the content is right," he says.
There's another aspect to the story as well. DuPont is a joint venture with the medical staff, Sprunger says. "The docs actually own a fair amount of it, and so there's a sense that we are responsible to create the environment where the best possible care can be delivered."
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