An Analysis of Electronic Health Record Work to Manage Asynchronous Clinical Messages among Breast Cancer Care Teams

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (04) ◽  
pp. 877-887
Author(s):  
Bryan D. Steitz ◽  
Kim M. Unertl ◽  
Mia A. Levy
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Electronic Health Record ◽  
Cancer Care ◽  
Medical Center ◽  
Asynchronous Communication ◽  
Care Team ◽  
Health Record ◽  
Breast Cancer Care ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Electronic Health

Abstract Objective Asynchronous messaging is an integral aspect of communication in clinical settings, but imposes additional work and potentially leads to inefficiency. The goal of this study was to describe the time spent using the electronic health record (EHR) to manage asynchronous communication to support breast cancer care coordination. Methods We analyzed 3 years of audit logs and secure messaging logs from the EHR for care team members involved in breast cancer care at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. To evaluate trends in EHR use, we combined log data into sequences of events that occurred within 15 minutes of any other event by the same employee about the same patient. Results Our cohort of 9,761 patients were the subject of 430,857 message threads by 7,194 employees over a 3-year period. Breast cancer care team members performed messaging actions in 37.5% of all EHR sessions, averaging 29.8 (standard deviation [SD] = 23.5) messaging sessions per day. Messaging sessions lasted an average of 1.1 (95% confidence interval: 0.99–1.24) minutes longer than nonmessaging sessions. On days when the cancer providers did not otherwise have clinical responsibilities, they still performed messaging actions in an average of 15 (SD = 11.9) sessions per day. Conclusion At our institution, clinical messaging occurred in 35% of all EHR sessions. Clinical messaging, sometimes viewed as a supporting task of clinical work, is important to delivering and coordinating care across roles. Measuring the electronic work of asynchronous communication among care team members affords the opportunity to systematically identify opportunities to improve employee workload.

scholarly journals Characterizing communication patterns among members of the clinical care team to deliver breast cancer treatment

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-243 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan D Steitz ◽  
Kim M Unertl ◽  
Mia A Levy
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Electronic Health Record ◽  
Medical Center ◽  
Clinical Care ◽  
Communication Patterns ◽  
Care Team ◽  
Health Record ◽  
Team Members ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Electronic Health

Abstract Objective Research to date focused on quantifying team collaboration has relied on identifying shared patients but does not incorporate the major role of communication patterns. The goal of this study was to describe the patterns and volume of communication among care team members involved in treating breast cancer patients. Materials and Methods We analyzed 4 years of communications data from the electronic health record between care team members at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). Our cohort of patients diagnosed with breast cancer was identified using the VUMC tumor registry. We classified each care team member participating in electronic messaging by their institutional role and classified physicians by specialty. To identify collaborative patterns, we modeled the data as a social network. Results Our cohort of 1181 patients was the subject of 322 424 messages sent in 104 210 unique communication threads by 5620 employees. On average, each patient was the subject of 88.2 message threads involving 106.4 employees. Each employee, on average, sent 72.9 messages and was connected to 24.6 collaborators. Nurses and physicians were involved in 98% and 44% of all message threads, respectively. Discussion and Conclusion Our results suggest that many providers in our study may experience a high volume of messaging work. By using data routinely generated through interaction with the electronic health record, we can begin to evaluate how to iteratively implement and assess initiatives to improve the efficiency of care coordination and reduce unnecessary messaging work across all care team roles.

scholarly journals Classification and analysis of asynchronous communication content between care team members involved in breast cancer treatment

JAMIA Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan D Steitz ◽  
Lina Sulieman ◽  
Jeremy L Warner ◽  
Daniel Fabbri ◽  
J Thomas Brown ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Medical Center ◽  
Clinical Information ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Asynchronous Communication ◽  
Care Team ◽  
Message Content ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Sentence Level

Abstract Objective A growing research literature has highlighted the work of managing and triaging clinical messages as a major contributor to professional exhaustion and burnout. The goal of this study was to discover and quantify the distribution of message content sent among care team members treating patients with breast cancer. Materials and Methods We analyzed nearly two years of communication data from the electronic health record (EHR) between care team members at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. We applied natural language processing to perform sentence-level annotation into one of five information types: clinical, medical logistics, nonmedical logistics, social, and other. We combined sentence-level annotations for each respective message. We evaluated message content by team member role and clinic activity. Results Our dataset included 81 857 messages containing 613 877 sentences. Across all roles, 63.4% and 21.8% of messages contained logistical information and clinical information, respectively. Individuals in administrative or clinical staff roles sent 81% of all messages containing logistical information. There were 33.2% of messages sent by physicians containing clinical information—the most of any role. Discussion and Conclusion Our results demonstrate that EHR-based asynchronous communication is integral to coordinate care for patients with breast cancer. By understanding the content of messages sent by care team members, we can devise informatics initiatives to improve physicians’ clerical burden and reduce unnecessary interruptions.

scholarly journals Development of a Cancer Care Summary Through the Electronic Health Record

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. e231-e240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie L. Carr ◽  
Pearlanne Zelarney ◽  
Sarah Meadows ◽  
Jeffrey A. Kern ◽  
M. Bronwyn Long ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Health Record ◽  
Cancer Care ◽  
Query Language ◽  
Primary Care Providers ◽  
Urgent Care ◽  
Health Record ◽  
Patient Portal ◽  
Care Providers ◽  
Improvement Project ◽  
Electronic Health

Introduction: Our objective was to improve communication concerning lung cancer patients by developing and distributing a Cancer Care Summary that would provide clinically useful information about the patient’s diagnosis and care to providers in diverse settings. Methods: We designed structured, electronic forms for the electronic health record (EHR), detailing tumor staging, classification, and treatment. To ensure completeness and accuracy of the information, we implemented a data quality cycle, composed of reports that are reviewed by oncology clinicians. The data from the EHR forms are extracted into a structured query language database system on a daily basis, from which the Summaries are derived. We conducted focus groups regarding the utility, format, and content of the Summary. Cancer Care Summaries are automatically generated 4 months after a patient’s date of diagnosis, then every 6 months for those receiving treatment, and on an as-needed basis for urgent care or hospital admission. Results: The product of our improvement project is the Cancer Care Summary. To date, 102 individual patient Summaries have been generated. These documents are automatically entered into the National Jewish Health (NJH) EHR, attached to correspondence to primary care providers, available to patients as electronic documents on the NJH patient portal, and faxed to emergency departments and admitting physicians on patient evaluation. Conclusion: We developed a sustainable tool to improve cancer care communication. The Cancer Care Summary integrates information from the EHR in a timely manner and distributes the information through multiple avenues.

scholarly journals Electronic Health Record Adoption – Maybe It’s not about the Money

2011 ◽  
Vol 02 (04) ◽  
pp. 460-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Skinner ◽  
J. Windle ◽  
L. Grabenbauer
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Health Record ◽  
Patient Care ◽  
Resistance To Change ◽  
Medical Center ◽  
Academic Medical Center ◽  
Care Physician ◽  
Health Record ◽  
Record System ◽  
Intuitive Interfaces ◽  
Electronic Health

SummaryObjective: The slow adoption of electronic health record (EHR) systems has been linked to physician resistance to change and the expense of EHR adoption. This qualitative study was conducted to evaluate benefits, and clarify limitations of two mature, robust, comprehensive EHR Systems by tech-savvy physicians where resistance and expense are not at issue.Methods: Two EHR systems were examined – the paperless VistA / Computerized Patient Record System used at the Veterans‘ Administration, and the General Electric Centricity Enterprise system used at an academic medical center. A series of interviews was conducted with 20 EHR-savvy multi-institutional internal medicine (IM) faculty and house staff. Grounded theory was used to analyze the transcribed data and build themes. The relevance and importance of themes were constructed by examining their frequency, convergence, and intensity.Results: Despite eliminating resistance to both adoption and technology as drivers of acceptance, these two robust EHR’s are still viewed as having an adverse impact on two aspects of patient care, physician workflow and team communication. Both EHR’s had perceived strengths but also significant limitations and neither were able to satisfactorily address all of the physicians’ needs.Conclusion: Difficulties related to physician acceptance reflect real concerns about EHR impact on patient care. Physicians are optimistic about the future benefits of EHR systems, but are frustrated with the non-intuitive interfaces and cumbersome data searches of existing EHRs.

scholarly journals Assessing the Usability of Medication Information Layouts in a Home Healthcare Electronic Health Record

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 183-185
Author(s):  
Elease McLaurin ◽  
Ellen J. Bass ◽  
Kathryn H. Bowles ◽  
Paulina Sockolow
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Health Record ◽  
Patient Information ◽  
Home Healthcare ◽  
Healthcare Team ◽  
Shared Understanding ◽  
Health Record ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Related Information ◽  
Medication Information ◽  
Electronic Health

A study was conducted to investigate how well the design of an electronic health record (EHR) supported the shared understanding of medication-related information between home healthcare team members. EHR data from a home healthcare admission visit was obtained and reviewed for medication-related entries. Entries were characterized based on their location within the EHR interface. The analysis identified 50 different medication-related entries which were distributed across 18 EHR sections. The results highlight opportunities to improve the EHR design to better support a shared understanding between healthcare team members of medication-related information, and patient information more generally.

Enhancing the electronic health record to promote and measure adherence to breast cancer clinical pathways.

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (27_suppl) ◽  
pp. 322-322
Author(s):  
Lauren E. Geisel ◽  
Helen M. Johnson ◽  
Andrew Weil ◽  
Mahvish Muzaffar ◽  
Nasreen A. Vohra ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Family History ◽  
Electronic Health Record ◽  
Clinical Pathways ◽  
Clinical Stage ◽  
Baseline Data ◽  
Clinical Staging ◽  
Health Record ◽  
Electronic Health ◽  
Multidisciplinary Conference

322 Background: Clinical pathways are widely accepted tools for improving the quality of cancer care. We developed and implemented, within the electronic health record (EHR), a standardized multidisciplinary breast cancer conference template comprised of NCCN clinical pathway elements, with triggers to promote adherence and measure compliance. Methods: The records of breast cancer patients diagnosed from January 2016 to December 2017 were reviewed. Baseline data on (1) the documentation of clinical stage prior to prospective presentation at multidisciplinary conference, (2) documentation of family history, and (3) functional breast imaging utilization were recorded. EHR enhancements developed throughout 2018 were implemented in January 2019. Post-implementation data were obtained via an EHR query of records from January 2019 to the present. Results: At baseline, 56.5% of new patients (n = 435) had a clinical stage documented appropriately (goal 100%). After the EHR enhancements went live, this rate increased to 76.9% (n = 78 new diagnoses), ranging from 40% for patients with metastatic disease to 85.7% for non-metastatic. Compared with baseline data, EHR-derived data from 149 multidisciplinary conference notes demonstrated relatively stable rates of compliance with the family history and imaging metrics: 94.3% to 93.9% (goal 100%), and 12.8% to 13.4% (goal ≤20%), respectively. In 2019, there were 128 instances of an EHR trigger prompting physicians to review the multidisciplinary conference recommendations. While 89.1% of users responded that they reviewed the note, only 42.1% of these clicked on the link to view it. Conclusions: The EHR is a powerful tool for incorporating clinical pathways into oncology providers’ daily workflow. Quality improvement data can be extracted rapidly and efficiently, which facilitates continuous QI. We observed a notable improvement in documentation of clinical staging prior to multidisciplinary conference after the implementation of the clinical pathways in the EHR. Our first report identified several areas for improvement, which will be the focus of subsequent PDSA cycles.

Cross-sectoral cancer care: views from patients and health care professionals regarding a personal electronic health record

2016 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. e12429 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Baudendistel ◽  
E.C. Winkler ◽  
M. Kamradt ◽  
S. Brophy ◽  
G. Längst ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Electronic Health Record ◽  
Health Care Professionals ◽  
Cancer Care ◽  
Health Record ◽  
Electronic Health
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