Harnessing Effective EHR Use for Improved Patient Care
Harnessing Effective EHR Use for Improved Patient Care
Improving EHR use can help reduce physician burnout and strengthen the patient care process. When healthcare providers understand how to best leverage new technologies and are able to adopt and implement an integrated EHR system, both patients and providers will benefit.
That has been Kaiser Permanente’s top goal with its EHR safety net programs, looking to reduce errors in the diagnostic process.
Kaiser Permanente has developed a total 54 EHR safety net programs, which are collectively called KP SureNet. The programs have helped to close major care gaps over the past few years.
Michael Kanter, MD, Medical Director, Quality and Clinical Analysis, Southern California Permanente Medical Group explained to EHRIntelligence.com that KP SureNet utilizes electronic clinical surveillance tools to systematically identify and address potential care gaps in clinical settings.
For example, the programs could pinpoint a lag in time between an abnormal test result and further investigation.
READ MORE: OCHIN Partnership to Improve EHR Use for Epic, NextGen Users
“We began in 2006 with a safety net program that identified men with an elevated prostate-specific antigen level who had not been evaluated by a urologist within 12 weeks of receiving results,” Kanter said in an email. “As a result of the safety net program, many of those men received a biopsy and subsequently were diagnosed and treated for prostate cancer.”
One Southern California KP SureNet program helped ensure that patients with an abnormal kidney function measurement received a follow-up evaluation. Approximately 12,000 patients had not received follow-up despite abnormal creatinine levels, which is a potential marker of chronic kidney disease. Of those patients, more than 3,000 were newly diagnosed and then successfully treated.
KP SureNet has also reduced the potential medication related safety risk for outpatients who have a history of falls or dementia by 70 percent…
View all Articles by: Melissa Clark, CCS-P
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