In the current government regulation controlled environment we live in called healthcare, there’s little time or attention available to doing really cool innovative things. Yes, we’re doing really innovative things to meet meaningful use, but that’s not cool. However, I was pretty intrigued by this recent case study that looked at the integration of Cerner’s EHR with GetWellNetwork’s interactive TV system.
The integration looked to help automate the medication teaching workflow at Christiana Hospital. Here are the goals they listed for the project:
- Provide efficient staff workflow
- Increase medication education HCAHPS scores
- Increase patient and staff satisfaction
- Improve education consistency
- Increase the number of patient that take part in education
- Provider secure access to the patient’s medication list
- Meet Christiana Care Health System and Join Commission standards for patient education
Is it really innovative to connect a hopsital’s HIS system with a patient beside TV? Anyone who’s worked on integrations knows this is a challenge. Plus, how many other hospital systems have achieved this level of integration? If innovation is the wrong word, then how about impactful?
The best illustration of the impact was the improvement in HCAHPS scores that the hospital saw after implementing this medication education workflow. In fact, let’s be honest. If I hadn’t mentioned that this improved HCAHPS scores, then you probably wouldn’t have been reading this post at all. There are only a few things that get the attention of hospital CIOs today. One of those is improved HCAHPS scores.