Aurora Health Care is on a HITECH mission.
The nonprofit healthcare system based in Milwaukee and serving eastern Wisconsin is engaged in a three-year process to qualify its 15 hospitals, 1,200 eligible providers and 120 physical locations for “meaningful use” of EHRs.
In her opening keynote Wednesday morning at 9:00-10:00 AM CST, "Achieving and Measuring Meaningful Use: A View from the Field," Judith Murphy, RN, vice president of IT, will discuss how Aurora Health Care is working to achieve its goal.
Murphy, who is an expert on system implementation methodologies, automated clinical documentation and the use of technology to support evidence-based practice, will outline the steps Aurora Health Care is taking to achieve and measure the Stage 1 Meaningful Use criteria to receive incentive payments from CMS in the first half of 2011.
The biggest challenge Aurora Health Care has faced in its health IT initiative is trying to figure out how to do documentation and extraction around quality measures, according to Murphy, who also serves on the HIMSS Board of Directors and on the federal-advisory HIT Standards Committee.
In early December, six of Aurora Health Care’s hospitals will be entering the 90-day measurement period for meaningful use, she said. The healthcare system developed a real-time dashboard to help track its progress in meeting the criteria.
This year, the healthcare system implemented CPOE in four of those six hospitals. CPOE has been cited as a difficult application to deploy, and Aurora Health Care’s experience was no exception.
For one of its hospitals – an 850-bed facility – Aurora Health Care had to train 600 physicians. “We were working with all community physicians,” Murphy said. As a non-academic hospital, the facility did not have the benefit of faculty or resident physicians. That meant cardiac surgeons, endocrinologists and other specialists had to “put their hands on the keyboards,” she said.
Aurora Health Care engaged in one-on-one training and “consistent at-the-elbow support,” Murphy said. The healthcare system furloughed a group of nurses from other facilities to provide training and support.
While the exercise was human resources intensive, she said it was instrumental in the successful deployment of CPOE.
These efforts are just a few of the components of Aurora Health Care’s health IT strategy for achieving meaningful use, Murphy said. Other healthcare systems would do well to map out a comprehensive plan.
“Like anything, you have to get past the fear of the unknown and dig in,” Murphy said. “Read the requirements – which are not tough – and start creating your plan.”
