HealthyData Blog | Extract Systems

Transplant care teams have enough challenges managing patient information arriving from outside their institution. It's already a full workload entering primary data from the transplant evaluation process. It's a never ending process of data entry for solid organ programs. EHR adoption is adding to that already heavy workload and is creating the need to enter more discrete data. Ask yourself: isn't it enough that your solid organ transplant teams sift through a large number of non-electronic patient details from their originating healthcare institution? Meaningful use adds even more data entry pressure. This means your team will need to key in more discrete data into that EHR system. This type of change is not decreasing the workload, or making it easier to improve quality care. Does this sound familiar?

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If you had electronic tools to automate data entry, capture the valuable data that is currently coming to you in electronic and paper documents, and use it immediately to make essential clinical decisions, would you ever go back to the entering data the old way? 

We all know the challenges of data entry associated with screening and long term care of patients arriving from outside your health system. Why should you have to wait for paper documentation to be sorted and entered by your staff when there are tools to automate and standardize data entry tasks? Sharing information among health institutions and physicians is not yet standardized, but that doesn't mean you can't achieve efficiencies and automation with an affordable technology. Recent news reports confirm that interoperability is not a short term solution. The fact is you don't have to wait to take advantage of tools that improve data completeness and accuracy in your EHR – the data you need to make the right decisions for your patients. 

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Let’s imagine that you like the features of your transplant database and your hospital is transitioning your department away from your comfortable and dependable software, into an enterprise application. You’ve likely heard this transition makes sense and will provide costs savings for the entire organization, but you might be wondering if the cost savings will benefit your department. There are obvious economies of scale with an enterprise solution, but you can’t help but wonder if this will create new problems for you. Having access to clinical data within the continuum of care is wonderful, but it hasn’t eliminated the need for a fax machine.

Even as the largest healthcare systems implement enterprise electronic health records, interfaces and interoperability are still issues that must routinely be pondered. For example, the third largest public healthcare system in the nation is still using fax machines to share clinical results with their 1,600 physicians. ( Read More

You've just installed a new electronic health record and a dedicated module for transplant.
Now you discover your long term medical secretary, who is capable of typing 90 wpm, is planning to retire. What do you do? High turnover in any service line is a problem, but when you have a constant flow of paper in an environment that requires up-to-the-moment patient data, it is only a matter of time until patient safety becomes your primary sense of urgency. What are your options? 

Have you experienced this before? Your long term employee leaves and now you need to hire two people to handle the workload.

You hate to see them go after investing so much effort to train them on your specialized service line, but it's not uncommon for your workflow to be impacted by life decisions; employees move, retire, get sick.

Healthcare media continues to report that numbers of patient encounters are steadily rising due to the Affordable Care Act, especially in large urban areas. The problem will persist while your new hire(s) get up-to-speed. Your appreciation for that former employee will skyrocket when you realize how much the speed and accuracy of data entry fluctuates from one employee to the next.

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Beware as I sound off about a sensitive topic, but doesn’t it feel like access to outpatient data and lab results is more difficult than ever? The problem remains: a significant portion of relevant patient information is not being presented to the care team promptly in a format that will provide the most benefit. There is a world of difference for time savings and quality of care between having discrete information in the Electronic Health Record compared to having to search for pages of data or documents. The difference is having data immediately available for overviews, reports and trending. Having patience and a good attitude will go a long way while waiting for structured and usable data.

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Enterprise applications are driving change in most every hospital, and transplant programs are no exception. I’ve spoken to many nurse coordinators, and I often hear they are coping with change; many are adopting new systems in progress, or will be soon.  I get to speak to a variety of healthcare personnel as part of my job and it seems that the only constant these days, is change.  Changes in software, changes in workflow, changes in management, and merging of institutions are common.  Sometimes change is for the better of the organization but is it always welcome for the service line or more importantly, the transplant team working with patients.

Are you someone who likes change? 

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If you're like me, you see your physician regularly for your annual exam. When you reach a certain age, man or woman, one needs to consider routine screenings for cancer. I reached a milestone age for one of those routine screenings this year.  You know, the one where you stay home so you can be prepared for a quick run to bathroom. Don't worry, I won’t go into details, but I’m grateful to say that I’m good for another 10 years. The one thing that amazed me during my outpatient visit, other than the kindness from the nursing staff, was now much paper remains in an ambulatory/outpatient setting. 

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Does your transplant team have all the info they need?

I often read that every detail matters when caring for patients. The evaluation process is complex and peri-transplant treatment decisions leave little room for error. But what happens when physicians don’t have all the information in the transplant information systems? Care decisions may need to be made despite some patient data missing in the database. Or at the very least, decisions are delayed while waiting for additional information.

We all know transplant care involves dozens of professionals. And the average multi-organ transplant program incorporates hundreds of test panels and thousands of individual test components. The average cost of transplantation is well into the six figures. With so much at stake, critical patient information - including external lab results - must be accessible for decision support.

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