Currently, the University healthcare system is in the midst of rolling out the cpoe portion of the EHR project. A multidisciplinary decision-making project with a staff before beginning the initiative, and leaders and clinicians tried to educate themselves on what the cpoe project would entail. They were familiar with cases such as one at cedars sinai in which cpoe was halted after physician uproar over the time it took to use it and patient safety concerns. To help ensure this did not happen at the University health care system, the leadership team decided to take a slower, pissed in approach. Team members visited similar organizations that had implemented cpoe, attended vendor user group conferences, consulted with colleagues from across the nation, and autocorrected there following projects goals:
Optimize patient safety.
Improve quality outcomes and reduce variation in practice through the use of evidence best practical guidelines.
Reduce risk for errors.
Accommodate regulatory standards expectations. Enhance patient satisfaction.
Standardize processes. Improve efficiency.
The board had made it clear it wants regular updates on the progress of the project and expects to see what return on the investment had been.
1. How might you evaluate the CPU implementation process at the University healthcare system? Give examples of different methods of strategies you might employ.
2. How would you respond to the boards desire for a return on investment from this initiative? Is it a reasonable request? Why or why not
3. Assume you are to leave the evaluation component of this project. You have reviewed the goal for the project. What process would you use to develop a plan for accessing the value of cpoe? Who would be involved? What roles would they play? How would you decide on the best metrics to use? What baseline data would you want to collect or review?
