The Section of General Pediatrics at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children, located in Philadelphia, PA, contracted to work with PA REACH East to receive support throughout its transition from paper to an electronic health record (EHR) system. Thanks to a lot of hard work and perseverance, all of the providers at the practice have met Stage 1 Meaningful Use (MU) within the first year of EHR Go-Live.
Transitioning to an EHR system has resulted in a significant change in culture and general workflow at St. Christopher’s, and with that change comes a variety of challenges. For example, staff found the reporting functionality within the EHR system to be confusing and difficult to use. To remedy this, PA REACH East helped the practice customize the reporting structure within the system to better meet the needs of the staff and still report on the required MU measures.
They also determined that the workflow development within the EHR, which was designed to capture MU measures, was a bit cumbersome. To address this problem, St. Christopher’s created a clinical champion team that continually evaluated the MU measures versus the data that was being captured to ensure that the practice was staying on track.
Another challenge was fear on the side of the providers that they would not be able to capture all of the necessary patient information that is required to meet the MU measures during a regular office visit. St. Christopher’s was able to minimize this fear by promoting MU as a team effort that enlisted help from the entire clinical support staff to capture the necessary patient data.
Although the road to MU has, at times, been a bit bumpy, there have also been many positive outcomes that have resulted from the practice “meaningfully using” its EHR system.
According to St. Christopher's Hospital for Children, Section of General Pediatrics Director of Operations Vanessa Arce, “Within the first six months of implementing our EHR we have been able to reduce wait times by 20 percent, which translates to 15 minutes per patient.” Arce also reported that in the past year the time efficiency of the patient experience has been reduced by 30 minutes, which resulted in a 30 percent reduction. And by using patient-tracking in the system to track daily clinic flow, the practice has reduced its “no-show” rates from 35 percent to 21 percent in less than 9 months by automating the follow-up process.
When asked to share some lessons learned throughout the transition, Arce stressed that communication and staff involvement were critical to a successful implementation.
“Working with a clinical champion team is the best approach,” said Arce. She shared that gaining buy-in from providers and more seasoned staff can be a difficult culture change, but that promotion within the practice is crucial for the implementation of any new project.
“Our team worked hard to consistently meet all of the deliverables prior to go-live. We still update our staff weekly as to changes, additions, upgrades, etc., and we continue to meet and look at opportunities to make our practice more efficient within the EHR.”