Improving Clinical Workflow Can Boost Health IT Quality

At this point, the great majority of providers have made very substantial investments in EMRs and ancillary systems. Now, many are struggling to squeeze the most value out of those investments, and they’re not sure how to attack the problem.

However, according to at least one piece of research, there’s a couple of approaches that are likely to pan out. According to a new survey by the American Society for Quality, most healthcare quality experts believe that improving clinical workflow and supporting patients online can make a big diference.

As ASQ noted, providers are spending massive amounts of case on IT, with the North American healthcare IT market forecast to hit $31.3 by 2017, up from $21.9 billion in 2012. But healthcare organizations are struggling to realize a return on their spending. The study data, however, suggests that providers may be able to make progress by looking at internal issues.

Researchers who conducted the survey, an online poll of about 170 ASQ members, said that 78% of respondents said improving workflow efficiency is the top way for healthcare organizations to improve the quality of their technology implementations. Meanwhile, 71% said that providers can strengthen their health IT use by nurturing strong leaders who champion new HIT initiatives.

Meanwhile, survey participants listed a handful of evolving health IT options which could have the most impact on patient experience and care coordination, including:

  • Incorporation of wearables, remote patient monitoring and caregiver collaboration tools (71%)
  • Leveraging smartphones, tablets and apps (69%)
  • Putting online tools in place that touch every step of patient processes like registration and payment (69%)

Despite their promise, there are a number of hurdles healthcare organizations must get over to implement new processes (such as better workflows) or new technologies. According to ASQ, these include:

  • Physician and staff resistance to change due to concerns about the impact on time and workflow, or unwillingness to learn new skills (70%)
  • High cost of rolling out IT infrastructure and services, and unproven ROI (64%)
  • Concerns that integrating complex new devices could lead to poor interfaces between multiple technologies, or that haphazard rollouts of new devices could cause patient errors (61%)

But if providers can get past these issues, there are several types of health IT that can boost ROI or cut cost, the ASQ respondents said. According to these participants, the following HIT tools can have the biggest impact:

  • Remote patient monitoring can cut down on the need for office visits, while improving patient outcomes (69%)
  • Patient engagement platforms that encourage patients to get more involved in the long-term management of their own health conditions (68%)
  • EMRs/EHRs that eliminate the need to perform some time-consuming tasks (68%)

Perhaps the most interesting part of the survey report outlined specific strategies to strengthen health IT use recommended by respondents, such as:

  • Embedding a quality expert in every department to learn use needs before deciding what IT tools to implement. This gives users a sense of investment in any changes made.
  • Improving available software with easier navigation, better organization of medical record types, more use of FTP servers for convenience, the ability to upload records to requesting facilities and a universal notification system offering updates on medical record status
  • Creating healthcare apps for professional use, such as medication calculators, med reconciliation tools and easy-to-use mobile apps which offer access to clinical pathways

Of course, most readers of this blog already know about these options, and if they’re not currently taking this advice they’re probably thinking about it. Heck, some of this should already be old hat – FTP servers? But it’s still good to be reminded that progress in boosting the value of health IT investments may be with reach. (To get some here-and-now advice on redesigning EMR workflow, check out this excellent piece by Chuck Webster – he gets it!)

About the author

Anne Zieger

Anne Zieger is a healthcare journalist who has written about the industry for 30 years. Her work has appeared in all of the leading healthcare industry publications, and she's served as editor in chief of several healthcare B2B sites.

2 Comments

  • As a front liner, how could we not agree with improving our clinical workflow. The big barrier to this is EHR certification. EHR vendors cannot and will not change workflow, even if its terrible, as they do not want to risk being de-certified. They are forced to live within the narrow vision of the US government’s idea of a certified EHR. We need our CMS and ONC policy makers to STOP requiring EHR certification and allow IT vendors to work directly with physicians to improve workflow, usability, efficiency safety security etc. Their take is that we need a nanny because the IT vendors will take advantage of us and say it has a feature that it really doesn’t. That is what a competitive functional market corrects, bad vendors. But even with that said, MANY current CERTIFIED products have the correct features, but they are so un-usable, that they essentially are not truly implemented.

    I say, bring innovation back in, stop requiring EHRs to be certified to participate in these “value” based programs, like MACRA, APM etc. Then watch the magic happen. We know what we need and IT would love to give us great products. But currently, the IT vendors are swamped with massive regulatory change seemingly every year. That leaves no room for innovation or direct help to front line providers.

  • meltoots,
    It’s amazing that EHR certification doesn’t get more attention for all the reasons you mention. It’s kind of been ignored in all of the legislative mess. Is there any reason we’re still certifying EHR?

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