Epic EHR Optimization Saves Clinician Time, Increases Efficiency

Each member of the [Tegria] team brings a wealth of technical and operational knowledge and truly partners with us on any challenges that arise. The team also has a vested interest in helping to develop metrics and processes to support the sustainment of changes implemented.

A VICE PRESIDENT

Background and Challenge

A California-based healthcare organization successfully transitioned to Epic; but with five hospitals, 19 outpatient facilities, half a million patients annually, and 2,600 affiliated physicians, the new system was a lot to manage. Over the first several months, discontent regarding efficiencies and outcomes began to grow, prompting leadership to explore ways to address the challenges they were facing with their new EHR system. Their top goals were to save clinicians time, redefine scope of practice, and allow staff to work to the top of their license.

Solution

An integrated team of Tegria experts assessed the challenge areas and determined root causes, then recommended improvements. For example, existing policies were creating unnecessary administrative work and slowing down patient task turnaround time. Tegria developed a two- to three-year strategic roadmap to address the organizational and system changes needed to optimize the EHR build and save time.

Restrictive daily roles and responsibilities were pushing administrative work to providers instead of support staff. The organization meticulously reviewed and clarified daily tasks for 15 different support roles, then worked with Tegria experts to update the scope of practice to include more than 70 additional tasks for support staff. This process identified more than 58 tasks providers would no longer need to do and immediately began saving them time.

Tegria also helped to streamline and train users on In Basket, Epic’s messaging and daily task management application. Most clinicians were unclear on how to divide responsibilities among staff members and efficiently address messages that needed clinician input. Working with Epic and the organization to streamline the system decreased system message volume by nearly 1,000 messages per day and removed approximately 3 million messages that did not need provider intervention. To further reduce clicks for providers, clinical support staff, and coders, Tegria analyzed and updated orders preference lists and charging workflows.