Biomedical subjects

Eric G Poon

Publications and source records attributed to Eric G Poon.

26 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

PubMed2003

Defining the priorities and challenges for the adoption of Information Technology in HealthCare: opinions from an expert panel.

The Harvard Interfaculty Initiative developed a tool to assess the level of Information Technology adoption at healthcare organizations and asked an expert panel to rate the clinical functions where IT-based solutions can impact quality of care. The experts were asked to identify high priority areas where IT might impact quality, and to rate the difficulty in implementation associated with that solution. While scores from the expert panel varied widely in assessing difficulties in implementation of IT, there was broad consensus on high priority areas.

Delivery of Health Care↗

PubMed2003

Overcoming the barriers to the implementing computerized physician order entry systems in US hospitals: perspectives from senior management.

We sought to identify the barriers to CPOE implementation and the strategies for overcoming them. By analyzing 57 transcripts of interviews with management officials at 25 US hospitals, we identified costs and physician resistance as the two most significant barriers. Hospitals often overcome the high cost of CPOE implementation by placing patient safety at the top of their agenda. Other hospitals manage physician resistance by leveraging strong leadership, external influence, vendor commitment and the presence of house staff and hospitalists. Efforts to promote the adoption of CPOE should therefore focus on these strategies.

Costs and Cost Analysis↗

PubMed2003

Supporting patient care beyond the clinical encounter: three informatics innovations from partners health care.

As the focus of medicine moves from acute episodic care in the hospital to chronic disease management in outpatients, the primary care physician will play an increasingly important role in the coordination of patient care activities. Traditional outpatient informatics systems have largely focused on the workflow during the clinical encounter. Many tasks, including management of test results,coordination of subspecialty referrals and communication between patients and the practice,remain unsupported. When these tasks are not performed well, quality of care, patient safety and satisfaction may suffer. To address these issues ,Partners Healthcare in Boston, MA has recently developed several applications to address these issues. This demonstration will showcase 3 of these new applications: i) Results Manager, ii) Referrals Manager and iii) Patient Gateway. All interoperate with a browser-based electronic medical record already used by over 500 primary care physicians at Partners Healthcare.

Ambulatory Care↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Design and implementation of a comprehensive outpatient Results Manager.

Prior research has demonstrated that clinicians often fail to review and act upon outpatient test results in a timely and appropriate manner. To address this patient safety and quality of care issue, Partners Healthcare has developed a browser-based, provider-centric, comprehensive results management application to help clinic physicians review and act upon test results in a safe, reliable, and efficient manner. The application, called the Results Manager, incorporates extensive decision support features to classify the degree of abnormality for each result, presents guidelines to help clinicians manage abnormal results, allows clinicians to generate result letters to patients with predefined, context-sensitive templates and prompts physicians to set reminders for future testing. In this paper, we outline the design process and functionality of Results Manager. We also discuss its underlying architectural design, which revolves around a clinical event monitor and a rules engine, and the methodological challenges encountered in designing this application.

Ambulatory Care↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Real-time notification of laboratory data requested by users through alphanumeric pagers.

The authors developed a novel feature in their clinical information systems, which allows clinicians to request notification about laboratory results. Clinicians who are expecting a particular laboratory result for a particular patient can request a report of the result via an alphanumeric pager as soon as the result is filed into the patient database. This feature has gained popularity and is heavily used in both inpatient and outpatient settings, at a rate of about 2,300 times per month. This event-monitor-based feature illustrates one way that information technology can be applied to improve communication in health care.

Clinical Laboratory Information Systems↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Design and implementation of an application and associated services to support interdisciplinary medication reconciliation efforts at an integrated healthcare delivery network.

Confusion about patients' medication regimens during the hospital admission and discharge process accounts for many preventable and serious medication errors. Many organizations have begun to redesign their clinical processes to address this patient safety concern. Partners HealthCare, an integrated delivery network in Boston, Massachusetts, has answered this interdisciplinary challenge by leveraging its multiple outpatient electronic medical records (EMR) and inpatient computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems to facilitate the process of medication reconciliation. This manuscript describes the design of a novel application and the associated services that aggregate medication data from EMR and CPOE systems so that clinicians can efficiently generate an accurate pre-admission medication list. Information collected with the use of this application subsequently supports the writing of admission and discharge orders by physicians, performance of admission assessment by nurses, and reconciliation of inpatient orders by pharmacists. Results from early pilot testing suggest that this new medication reconciliation process is well accepted by clinicians and has significant potential to prevent medication errors during transitions of care.

Clinical Pharmacy Information Systems↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Overcoming barriers to adopting and implementing computerized physician order entry systems in U.S. hospitals.

Few U.S. hospitals have implemented computerized physician order entry (CPOE) in spite of its effectiveness at preventing serious medication errors. We interviewed senior management at twenty-six hospitals to identify ways to overcome barriers to adopting and implementing CPOE. Within the hospital, strong leadership and high-quality technology were critical. Hospitals that placed a high priority on patient safety could more easily justify the cost of CPOE. Outside the hospital, financial incentives and public pressures encouraged CPOE adoption. Dissemination of data standards would accelerate the maturation of vendors and lower CPOE costs. These findings highlight several policy levers to speed the adoption of this important patient safety technology.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Functional gaps in attaining a national health information network.

We describe the health information technology (HIT) required for a model of a national health information network (NHIN). Specifically, we define the functional HIT capabilities of an attainable NHIN and determine the gap between the current state of HIT and its likely state in five years, given current trends of adoption. Administrative functionalities will be more prevalent than clinical functionalities in five years. Smaller stakeholders, such as home health care agencies, will lag in adoption. Policy changes, such as financial incentives to HIT end users or regulatory measures, may help accelerate the adoption of HIT for a model NHIN.

Diffusion of Innovation↗