A clinical management system for patient participatory health care support. Assuring the patients' rights and confirming operation of clinical treatment and hospital administration

We conducted a drastic change in our hospital information system to support patient participatory health care provided in the New Hiroshima University Hospital (HUH). The new information system in HUH (HU-MIND II-Hiroshima University Hospital Medical Intelligence and Notice Delivery system II) is designed as "clinical management system" (CMS). The core of this CMS is the electronic health record (EHR), which aims to assure both the patients' right to know, and the attendants' accountability. It is evident that the team practice including patients requires close communication. Data in the EHR are written not only by physicians, but also by all coworkers, which will enable them to realize the team communication and the ordering in a reliable way and to leave the evidence of conducted practices. Moreover, the bedside information systems were set-up at all 700 beds. Patients can access their anamnesis and future clinical care procedures themselves. Based on the demand outlined above, the new regulations of HUH are composed of 21 requirements, conditions of information collection, accumulation and use. Our focus was how to make patients' right compatible with attendants' accountability. As the data owners, patients have the facility to access their own data at their bedsides. They can view their own health condition and treatment program and can control the data flow.     

Patient-centered communication in the era of electronic health records: What does the evidence say?

ObjectivePatient-physician communication is essential for patient-centered health care. Physicians are concerned that electronic health records (EHRs) negatively affect communication with patients. This study identified a framework for understanding communication functions that influence patient outcomes. We then conducted a systematic review of the literature and organized it within the framework to better understand what is known.MethodA comprehensive search of three databases (CINAHL, Medline, PsycINFO) yielded 41 articles for analysis.ResultsResults indicated that EHR use improves capture and sharing of certain biomedical information. However, it may interfere with collection of psychosocial and emotional information, and therefore may interfere with development of supportive, healing relationships. Patient access to the EHR and messaging functions may improve communication, patient empowerment, engagement, and self-management.ConclusionMore rigorous examination of EHR impacts on communication functions and their influences on patient outcomes is imperative for achieving patient-centered care. By focusing on the role of communication functions on patient outcomes, future EHRs can be developed to facilitate care.Practice implicationsTraining alone is likely to be insufficient to address disruptions to communication processes. Processes must be improved, and EHRs must be developed to capture useful data without interfering with physicians’ and patients’ abilities to effectively communicate.     

Cross-institutional data exchange using the clinical document architecture (CDA)

PROBLEM: Although electronic communication of clinical data between various actors in the healthcare domain seems crucial for a cost-effective patient treatment, it is mostly restricted to paper based documents. In order to meet the growing need for improved data communication, it is necessary to overcome the barriers of software heterogeneity and lack of standards, especially in cross-institutional shared care communication. HL7's clinical document architecture (CDA) is a new and promising tool to exchange any clinical document. In this paper we show how CDA can be used to (1) share electronic discharge letters and other clinical data generated and stored in the hospitals electronic patient record (EPR) with general practitioners and (2) to transfer these clinical data to a personal electronic health record (EHR). The latter scenario is in routine use. Ease-of-use and data security and integrity were the main design principles in both scenarios. METHODS: Within the electronic patient record a data extraction and exporting mechanism has been built. For both scenarios appropriate data processing and transmission methods have been developed, and the receiving information systems have been prepared for the CDA based data input. RESULTS: Although there still remain technical and organizational issues to be solved, this is a promising method in order to enhance data exchange between hospital and primary care and to move towards an electronic patient record (EPR) and an electronic health record (EHR) crossing institutional borders. This paper describes the design and current implementation and discusses our experiences.     

Is Canada ready for patient accessible electronic health records? A national scan

Background  

Access to personal health information through the electronic health record (EHR) is an innovative means to enable people to be active participants in their own health care. Currently this is not an available option for consumers of health. The absence of a key technology, the EHR, is a significant obstacle to providing patient accessible electronic records. To assess the readiness for the implementation and adoption of EHRs in Canada, a national scan was conducted to determine organizational readiness and willingness for patient accessible electronic records.     

The impact of patient-generated contextual data on communication in clinical practice: A qualitative assessment of patient and clinician perspectives

BackgroundEffective communication is integral to patient-centered care, yet external pressures can impede the ability to discuss important topics. One strategy to facilitate communication is pre-visit collection and sharing of patient contextual data (PCD), including life circumstances such as their beliefs, needs, and concerns.ObjectiveTo understand how patients and care team members perceive the electronic collection of PCD and its impact on communication in the context of a large academic health system that implemented PatientWisdom, a new technology that elicits PCD from patients and integrates within the electronic health record (EHR).MethodsWe conducted focus groups with patients (n = 26) and semi-structured interviews with primary care team members (n = 20). Qualitative analysis of focus group/interviews included an iterative and reflexive inductive technique to uncover emergent themes.ResultsFour themes were reflected among both patient and care team: (1) the technology enhances the patient’s voice; (2) the technology creates a safe space for patients to share sensitive topics; (3) PCD facilitates rapport not only between patient and provider but the entire care team; (4) PCD aligns patient and clinician goals. Two unique themes emerged among patients: (1) PCD provides opportunity for reflection; (2) PCD humanizes patients in the clinical context. One theme was evident in provider comments: collecting PCD may potentially undermine trust if not reviewed by clinical teams.ConclusionPCD collected directly from patients and available within the EHR was seen by patients and care team members as beneficial to communication. PCD collection supports a paradigm shift towards coproduction of health information and a shared responsibility for information gathering but requires investment from patients and care team to ensure the data are effectively utilized.Practice valuePCD may be useful for team-based care, enabling physicians and non-physician staff to more quickly and responsively connect with patients.     

Patient accessible electronic health records: exploring recommendations for successful implementation strategies

Background

Providing patients with access to their electronic health records offers great promise to improve patient health and satisfaction with their care, as well to improve professional and organizational approaches to health care. Although many benefits have been identified, there are many questions about best practices for the implementation of patient accessible Electronic Health Records (EHRs).

Objectives

To develop recommendations to assist health care organizations in providing patients with access to EHRs in a meaningful, responsible, and responsive manner.

Methods

A Patient Accessible Electronic Health Record (PAEHR) Workshop was held with nationally and internationally renowned experts to explore issues related to providing patient access to the EHR and managing institutional change.

Results

The PAEHR Workshop was attended by 45 participants who discussed recommendations for the implementation of patient accessible EHRs. Recommendations were discussed under four subject domains: (1) providing patient access to the EHR, (2) maintaining privacy and confidentiality related to the PAEHR, (3) patient education and navigation of the PAEHR, and (4) strategies for managing institutional change. The discussion focused on the need for national infrastructure, clear definitions for privacy, security and confidentiality, flexible, interoperable solutions, and patient and professional education. In addition, there was a strong call for research into all domains of patient accessible EHRs to ensure the adoption of evidence-based practices.

Conclusions

Patient access to personal health information is a fundamental issue for patient engagement and empowerment. Health care professionals and organizations should consider the potential benefits and risks of patient access when developing EHR strategies. Flexible, standardized, and interoperable solutions must be integrated with outcomes-based research to activate effectively patients as partners in their health care.     

Provider interaction with the electronic health record: The effects on patient-centered communication in medical encounters

Objective

The computer with the electronic health record (EHR) is an additional ‘interactant’ in the medical consultation, as clinicians must simultaneously or in alternation engage patient and computer to provide medical care. Few studies have examined how clinicians’ EHR workflow (e.g., gaze, keyboard activity, and silence) influences the quality of their communication, the patient's involvement in the encounter, and conversational control of the visit.

Methods

Twenty-three primary care providers (PCPs) from USA Veterans Administration (VA) primary care clinics participated in the study. Up to 6 patients per PCP were recruited. The proportion of time PCPs spent gazing at the computer was captured in real time via video-recording. Mouse click/scrolling activity was captured through Morae, a usability software that logs mouse clicks and scrolling activity. Conversational silence was coded as the proportion of time in the visit when PCP and patient were not talking. After the visit, patients completed patient satisfaction measures. Trained coders independently viewed videos of the interactions and rated the degree to which PCPs were patient-centered (informative, supportive, partnering) and patients were involved in the consultation. Conversational control was measured as the proportion of time the PCP held the floor compared to the patient.

Results

The final sample included 125 consultations. PCPs who spent more time in the consultation gazing at the computer and whose visits had more conversational silence were rated lower in patient-centeredness. PCPs controlled more of the talk time in the visits that also had longer periods of mutual silence.

Conclusions

PCPs were rated as having less effective communication when they spent more time looking at the computer and when there was more periods of silence in the consultation. Because PCPs increasingly are using the EHR in their consultations, more research is needed to determine effective ways that they can verbally engage patients while simultaneously managing data in the EHR.

Practice implications

EHR activity consumes an increasing proportion of clinicians’ time during consultations. To ensure effective communication with their patients, clinicians may benefit from using communication strategies that maintain the flow of conversation when working with the computer, as well as from learning EHR management skills that prevent extended periods of gaze at computer and long periods of silence. Next-generation EHR design must address better usability and clinical workflow integration, including facilitating patient-clinician communication.     

Electronic health records in complementary and alternative medicine

OBJECTIVES: This paper investigates the potential for a standardised electronic health record (EHR) designed for conventional medicine also to be used by complementary and alternative medicine. METHOD: The research was undertaken using anonymised samples of patient records from homoeopathy practices, to investigate if the patient data could be modelled using the forthcoming joint European and International Standard for EHR Communications (ISO/EN 13606). The research deliberately did not consider the effectiveness of complementary and alternative medicine or the clinical evidence for any particular CAM practice or treatment. The focus was purely on the patient data captured routinely by CAM therapists, to determine whether current approaches to the representation and communication of EHRs could incorporate such records. RESULTS: Five homoeopathic patient records, authored by different practitioners in different practice settings, were re-represented in a structured form in conformance with the ISO/EN 13606 reference Model. A sixth practitioner confirmed that the transposition had been as faithful to the original records as was possible given some limitations in the clarity of the originals. CONCLUSION: The authors conclude that the ISO/EN 13606 model can be used to represent patient records from homoeopathy, including the evidence and reasoning used to arrive at a formulation and to determine the appropriate remedy. It is therefore feasible that future EHR systems adopting this standard could enable patient records to be shared between complementary and conventional medical practice, in support of integrated healthcare.     

Requirements for effective academic leadership in Iran: A Nominal Group Technique exercise

Background

United States academic medical centers are increasingly incorporating electronic health records (EHR) into teaching settings. We report third year medical students' attitudes towards clinical learning using the electronic health record in ambulatory primary care clinics.

Methods

In academic year 2005–06, 60 third year students were invited to complete a questionnaire after finishing the required Ambulatory Medicine/Family Medicine clerkship. The authors elicited themes for the questionnaire by asking a focus group of third year students how using the EHR had impacted their learning. Five themes emerged: organization of information, access to online resources, prompts from the EHR, personal performance (charting and presenting), and communication with patients and preceptors. The authors added a sixth theme: impact on student and patient follow-up. The authors created a 21-item questionnaire, based on these themes that used a 5-point Likert scale from "Strongly Agree" to "Strongly Disagree". The authors emailed an electronic survey link to each consenting student immediately following their clerkship experience in Ambulatory Medicine/Family Medicine.

Results

33 of 53 consenting students (62%) returned completed questionnaires. Most students liked the EHR's ability to organize information, with 70% of students responding that essential information was easier to find electronically. Only 36% and 33% of students reported accessing online patient information or clinical guidelines more often when using the EHR than when using paper charts. Most students (72%) reported asking more history questions due to EHR prompts, and 39% ordered more clinical preventive services. Most students (69%) reported that the EHR improved their documentation. 39% of students responded that they received more feedback on their EHR notes compared to paper chart notes. Only 64% of students were satisfied with the doctor-patient communication with the EHR, and 48% stated they spent less time looking at the patient.

Conclusion

Third year medical students reported generally positive attitudes towards using the EHR in the ambulatory setting. They reported receiving more feedback on their electronic charts than on paper charts. However, students reported significant concerns about the potential impact of the EHR on their ability to conduct the doctor-patient encounter.     

Development of a cognitive framework of patient record summary review in the formative phase of user-centered design

Excellent usability characteristics allow electronic health record (EHR) systems to more effectively support clinicians providing care and contribute to better quality and safety. The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC) therefore requires all vendors to follow a User-Centered Design (UCD) process to increase the usability of their products in order to meet certification criteria for the Safety-Enhanced Design part of the Meaningful Use (stage 2) EHR incentive program. This report describes the initial stage of a UCD process in which foundational design concepts were formulated. We designed a functional prototype of an EHR module intended to help clinicians to efficiently complete a summary review of an electronic patient record before an ambulatory visit. Cognitively-based studies were performed and the results used to develop a cognitive framework that subsequently guided design of a prototype. Results showed that clinicians categorized and reasoned with patient data in distinct patterns; they preferred to review relevant history in the assessment and plan section of the most recent note, to search for changes in health and for new episodes of care since the last visit and to look up current-day data such as vital signs. These basic concepts were represented in the design, for instance, by screen division into vertical thirds that had historical content to the left and most recent data to the right. Other characteristics such as visual association of contextual information or direct, one-click access to the assessment and plan section of visit notes were directly informed by our findings and refined in a series of UCD-specific iterative testing. Understanding of tasks and cognitive demands early in the UCD process was critically important for developing a tool optimized for reasoning and workflow preferences of clinicians.     

Comparison of Electronic Health Record System Functionalities to support the patient recruitment process in clinical trials

ObjectivesReusing data from electronic health records for clinical and translational research and especially for patient recruitment has been tackled in a broader manner since about a decade. Most projects found in the literature however focus on standalone systems and proprietary implementations at one particular institution often for only one singular trial and no generic evaluation of EHR systems for their applicability to support the patient recruitment process does yet exist. Thus we sought to assess whether the current generation of EHR systems in Germany provides modules/tools, which can readily be applied for IT-supported patient recruitment scenarios.MethodsWe first analysed the EHR portfolio implemented at German University Hospitals and then selected 5 sites with five different EHR implementations covering all major commercial systems applied in German University Hospitals. Further, major functionalities required for patient recruitment support have been defined and the five sample EHRs and their standard tools have been compared to the major functionalities.ResultsIn our analysis of the site's hospital information system environments (with four commercial EHR systems and one self-developed system) we found that – even though no dedicated module for patient recruitment has been provided – most EHR products comprise generic tools such as workflow engines, querying capabilities, report generators and direct SQL-based database access which can be applied as query modules, screening lists and notification components for patient recruitment support. A major limitation of all current EHR products however is that they provide no dedicated data structures and functionalities for implementing and maintaining a local trial registry.ConclusionsAt the five sites with standard EHR tools the typical functionalities of the patient recruitment process could be mostly implemented. However, no EHR component is yet directly dedicated to support research requirements such as patient recruitment. We recommend for future developments that EHR customers and vendors focus much more on the provision of dedicated patient recruitment modules.     

Unintended adverse consequences of introducing electronic health records in residential aged care homes

PurposeThe aim of this study was to investigate the unintended adverse consequences of introducing electronic health records (EHR) in residential aged care homes (RACHs) and to examine the causes of these unintended adverse consequences.MethodA qualitative interview study was conducted in nine RACHs belonging to three organisations in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), New South Wales (NSW) and Queensland, Australia. A longitudinal investigation after the implementation of the aged care EHR systems was conducted at two data points: January 2009 to December 2009 and December 2010 to February 2011. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 110 care staff members identified through convenience sampling, representing all levels of care staff who worked in these facilities. Data analysis was guided by DeLone and McLean Information Systems Success Model, in reference with the previous studies of unintended consequences for the introduction of computerised provider order entry systems in hospitals.ResultsEight categories of unintended adverse consequences emerged from 266 data items mentioned by the interviewees. In descending order of the number and percentage of staff mentioning them, they are: inability/difficulty in data entry and information retrieval, end user resistance to using the system, increased complexity of information management, end user concerns about access, increased documentation burden, the reduction of communication, lack of space to place enough computers in the work place and increasing difficulties in delivering care services. The unintended consequences were caused by the initial conditions, the nature of the EHR system and the way the system was implemented and used by nursing staff members.ConclusionsAlthough the benefits of the EHR systems were obvious, as found by our previous study, introducing EHR systems in RACH can also cause adverse consequences of EHR avoidance, difficulty in access, increased complexity in information management, increased documentation burden, reduction of communication and the risks of lacking care follow-up, which may cause negative effects on aged care services. Further research can focus on investigating how the unintended adverse consequences can be mitigated or eliminated by understanding more about nursing staff's work as well as the information flow in RACH. This will help to improve the design, introduction and management of EHR systems in this setting.     

Building a robust, scalable and standards-driven infrastructure for secondary use of EHR data: the SHARPn project

The Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects (SHARP) Program, established by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in 2010 supports research findings that remove barriers for increased adoption of health IT. The improvements envisioned by the SHARP Area 4 Consortium (SHARPn) will enable the use of the electronic health record (EHR) for secondary purposes, such as care process and outcomes improvement, biomedical research and epidemiologic monitoring of the nation's health. One of the primary informatics problem areas in this endeavor is the standardization of disparate health data from the nation's many health care organizations and providers. The SHARPn team is developing open source services and components to support the ubiquitous exchange, sharing and reuse or 'liquidity' of operational clinical data stored in electronic health records. One year into the design and development of the SHARPn framework, we demonstrated end to end data flow and a prototype SHARPn platform, using thousands of patient electronic records sourced from two large healthcare organizations: Mayo Clinic and Intermountain Healthcare. The platform was deployed to (1) receive source EHR data in several formats, (2) generate structured data from EHR narrative text, and (3) normalize the EHR data using common detailed clinical models and Consolidated Health Informatics standard terminologies, which were (4) accessed by a phenotyping service using normalized data specifications. The architecture of this prototype SHARPn platform is presented. The EHR data throughput demonstration showed success in normalizing native EHR data, both structured and narrative, from two independent organizations and EHR systems. Based on the demonstration, observed challenges for standardization of EHR data for interoperable secondary use are discussed.     

Transitioning from a computerized provider order entry and paper documentation system to an electronic health record: Expectations and experiences of hospital staff

ObjectivesTo examine healthcare worker's perceptions, expectations, and experiences regarding how work processes, patient-related safety, and care were affected when a quaternary care center transitioned from one computerized provider order entry (CPOE) system to a full electronic health record (EHR).MethodsThe I-SEE survey was administered prior to and 1-year after transition in systems. The construct validity and reliability of the survey was assessed within the current population and also compared to previously published results. Pre- and 1-year post-implementation scale means were compared within and across time periods.ResultsThe majority of respondents were nurses and personnel working in the acute care setting. Because a confirmatory factor analysis indicated a lack of fit of our data to the I-SEE survey's 5-factor structure, we conducted an exploratory factor analysis that resulted in a 7-factor structure which showed better reliability and validity. Mean scores for each factor indicated that attitudes and expectations were mostly positive and score trends over time were positive or neutral. Nurses generally had less positive attitudes about the transition than non-nursing respondents, although the difference diminished after implementation.ConclusionsFindings demonstrate that the majority of responding staff were generally positive about transitioning from CPOE system to a full electronic health record (EHR) and understood the goals of doing so, with overall improved ratings over time. In addition, the I-SEE survey, when modified based on our population, was useful for assessing patient care and safety related expectations and experiences during the transition from one CPOE system to an EHR.     

Redesigning electronic health record systems to support public health

Current electronic health record systems are primarily clinical in focus, designed to provide patient-level data and provider-level decision support. Adapting EHR systems to serve public health needs provides the possibility of enormous advances for public health practice and policy. In this review, we evaluate EHR functionality and map it to the three core functions of public health: assessment, policy development, and assurance. In doing so, we identify and discuss important design, implementation, and methodological issues with current systems. For example, in order to support public health's traditional focus on preventive health and socio-behavioral factors, EHR data models would need to be expanded to incorporate environmental, psychosocial, and other non-medical data elements, and workflow would have to be examined to determine the optimal way of collecting these data. We also argue that redesigning EHR systems to support public health offers benefits not only to the public health system but also to consumers, health-care institutions, and individual providers.