PatientKeeper CPOE rated easiest to use by KLAS Research
KLAS scores were based on interviews with IT and clinical personnel at hospitals that use the respective CPOE products. All of the hospitals using PatientKeeper CPOE interviewed by KLAS said they would buy the solution again.
“Feedback from these early adopters is very positive,” KLAS analyst Mark Allphin wrote in the report, entitled “PatientKeeper 2013: A New Take on Inpatient CPOE.” “PatientKeeper’s overall performance score of 86.4 places it in the upper tier of vendors and products rated by providers. These providers enjoy good interaction with PatientKeeper’s team, giving PatientKeeper near-perfect scores in areas like executive involvement and overall communication. Customers stated that PatientKeeper is extremely receptive and responsive to change requests and that PatientKeeper answers their questions very quickly. Ease of use was also one of the top-rated areas.”
KLAS also noted that some providers spent as little as 10 to 30 minutes training computer-savvy doctors on PatientKeeper CPOE; less computer-savvy physicians required more training, but nowhere near the 15 to 20 hours common for conventional CPOE products.
Learn more at www.patientkeeper.com.
AMA applauds extension in prep time for MU Stage 2
“The federal government’s decision to extend Stage 2 of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) Meaningful Use program is a welcome reprieve that will provide physicians and vendors with an additional year to adequately prepare for Stage 3 of the meaningful-use program. From the beginning, the AMA has urged the federal government to adjust the program’s timelines to ensure a safe, orderly transition so electronic health records can be widely adopted and implemented throughout the healthcare system.
“While the revised timeline for implementation is a positive step, we remain deeply concerned about the program’s current pass/fail approach to demonstrating meaningful use. We continue to advocate strongly for greater flexibility in the participation requirements.
“An October 2013 RAND Corporation study commissioned by the AMA found that many physicians are dissatisfied with electronic health records and the technology, as it interferes with the quality of face-to-face time spent with patients. Physicians need well-designed systems that meet the meaningful-use criteria and also help physicians as they move into new payment and care delivery models. We continue to urge the federal government to take these concerns into account when certifying systems.”
CPOE improvement is saving grace of latest Hospital Safety Scores
Adoption of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) was the single standout area of improvement noted in the Fall 2013 update to the Leapfrog Group Hospital Safety Score, released Oct. 23, 2013. The twice-yearly survey-based research assigns A, B, C, D and F grades to more than 2,500 U.S. general hospitals. The latest results show that many hospitals are making headway in addressing errors, accidents, injuries and infections that kill or hurt patients, but overall progress is excruciatingly slow – a painful reality in light of a September 2013 issue of the Journal of Patient Safety that estimates that up to 440,000 Americans die annually from preventable hospital errors, making these errors the third leading cause of death in the United States.
“We are burying a population the size of Miami every year from medical errors that can be prevented,” says Leah Binder, President and CEO of Leapfrog. “A number of hospitals have improved by one or even two grades, indicating hospitals are taking steps toward safer practices, but these efforts aren’t enough.”
The Hospital Safety Score is calculated under the guidance of the Leapfrog Blue Ribbon Expert Panel, with a fully transparent methodology analyzed in the peer-reviewed Journal of Patient Safety. Leapfrog, an independent, national nonprofit organization that administers the score, is an advocate for patient safety nationwide. There are 28 measures of publicly available hospital safety data used to produce a single grade representing a hospital’s overall safety rating.
Key findings from the Fall 2013 Score update include:
Of the 2,539 general hospitals issued a Hospital Safety Score, 813 earned an A grade, 661 earned a B, 893 earned a C, 150 earned a D and 22 earned an F.
On average, there was no improvement in hospitals’ reported performance on the measures included in the score, with the exception of hospital adoption of CPOE. The expansion in adoption of this life-saving technology suggests that federal policy efforts to improve hospital technology have shown some success.
While overall hospitals report little improvement in safety, some individual hospitals (3.5 percent) showed dramatic improvements of two or more grade levels.
Maine claimed the number-one spot for the state with the highest percentage of grade-A hospitals.
Kaiser and Sentara were among the hospital systems that achieved straight A scores, meaning 100 percent of their hospitals received an A grade.
For more information about the Hospital Safety Score or to view the list of state rankings, visit www.hospitalsafetyscore.org.
U.S. hospital CPOE adoption reaches 50 percent – benefits to follow
We have just arrived at an important tipping point in U.S. healthcare IT. As of the end of 2013, half of U.S. hospital EMRs have reached EMRAM Stage 4 (or above)*, the level at which they can begin to produce substantial benefits. The key capabilities added in Stage 4 are computerized physician order entry, or CPOE, and CPOE-driven decision support, including evidence-based medicine protocols.
These capabilities drive much of the expected benefit of an EMR: of the seven EMR benefits most frequently mentioned in literature, six (ADE prevention, faster order turnaround, increased use of hospital preventive care, and reductions in lab testing, drug utilization, and lengths of stay) are directly associated with CPOE and/or CPOE-driven decision support.
Of course, reaching EMRAM Stage 4 only requires that one inpatient service area be using CPOE, so there’s more work to be done in these hospitals to gain full use of CPOE. But the bigger issue is what hospitals are doing to reap the benefits of their newly enhanced technical capabilities. Unless a hospital is able to use the capabilities of the EMR to innovate – to substantially change the way they do their work – they wind up not just realizing less benefit than expected but actually increasing overall costs… exactly the opposite of what was intended by the meaningful-use program.
This type of innovation is not just about coming up with good ideas. It requires senior executive leadership, including a substantial resource commitment, and a structured innovation approach to drive ideas from concept to successful implementation through measured cycles of improvement.
*Current EMRAM scores show stages 4-7 at 49.3 percent as of Q3 2013. Source: HIMSS Analytics, www.himssanalytics.org/emram/scoreTrends.aspx.
