Quality
Nurses Facilitate Continued Success with the Epic EMR
During fiscal year 2010, nurses at the University of Chicago Medical Center continued to lead the way for important expansions of the Phoenix Project, the Medical Center's transition to an electronic medical record.
In November 2009, oncology nurses participated in a multidisciplinary effort to implement Epic's Beacon application. This module allows treatment plans and protocols for oncology patients to be tracked and monitored across the continuum of inpatient and outpatient care. The new module gives nurses and providers tools for improved safety and collaboration at the point of admission for viewing patient histories and ensuring continuity of care.
In September 2009, nurses provided the expertise to improve the design and functionality of electronic documentation and better support the delivery of evidence-based care to prevent hospital-acquired pressure ulcers. Based on nursing assessments completed on admission and daily thereafter, the program now automatically offers evidence-based nursing interventions to help prevent skin breakdown. This optimization of current flowsheets promotes healthy outcomes and supports nurses in helping their patients avoid complications.
Nurses also participated in the implementation of a successful new training curriculum for the Epic EMR. The new program aimed to increase end-user proficiency in navigating the system and using nursing workflows (such as medication reconciliation). The program involved completing a 20-question exam testing critical workflows and integrated knowledge of the program. Nearly 93 percent of participants passed the exam after initial preparation.
"By preparing for the exam, nurses reinforced their own essential knowledge about the EMR and Medical Center documentation policies. In the end, this helped improve the consistency and accuracy of nursing documentation," said Sally Szumlas, RN, MS, clinical director of nursing informatics at the Medical Center. The program supported the Medical Center's successful Joint Commission accreditation survey in 2010, and also was presented by Medical Center nurses at the national Epic conference highlighting its success. The proficiency testing program continues to be offered to managers and staff as needed, and has been integrated into annual competency systems for nurses at the Medical Center.
Finally, based on feedback from nursing staff and leadership, the nursing informatics hospital-based support program was launched during fiscal year 2010 to provide the expertise of nurse informaticists for at-the-elbow support of end users. The program's goals are to improve end-user adoption, improve user satisfaction with the system and improve the excellence of nurses' clinical documentation.
