Epic

We’ve got another world-first to share for generative AI.   Last week, our friends at Elisabeth-TweeSteden Ziekenhuis (ETZ) and UMCG in the Netherlands became the first clinicians to use generative AI-powered patient summaries in Epic.                 The goal: speed up outpatient visit prep by distilling information from the chart, with references to notes where specific details were documented. If clinicians have an idea of what they’re looking for, they can summarize specific notes or specific topics.   Speaking of the Netherlands: Stephanie Klein Nagelvoort Schuit (Professor of Future Healthcare, Acute Medicine Internist, and Vice Chair of the Board at UMCG) and Seth Hain spent the early half of this week presenting at ICT&health World Conference in Maastricht. They discussed all things AI—great timing. To everyone at ETZ and UMCG – congrats on leading the way! #healthcare #healthIT #AI

Our friends at Rochester Regional Health provide a great example of how nursing informatics teams can help their colleagues embrace new technology. RRH's nurse informaticists recently helped implement Rover, Epic's mobile app for nurses, so that nurses can complete their work on the go, without mobile workstations or trips to a centrally located computer. “Previously, when they would have to go back to a computer to document everything they just did, they would break out their piece of paper that they wrote all their stuff on and it could take about an hour,” said Joe Collins, RN, MBA, nurse informaticist at RRH. “With Rover, we have seen a decrease all the way down to five to six minutes.” Congrats, folks! Read more: https://lnkd.in/gbXFvw9z

For two weeks, the little town of Verona, Wisconsin had thousands more Xperts running around than usual. Congratulations to everyone who helped make this year’s XGM great! We found your thoughtful presentations and enthusiasm about healthcare electrifying. We’re still wired.

The newest way for health systems to improve nurse workloads through virtual care: Remote Dual Sign.   “Dual sign” is a safety protocol for medication administration: one nurse has another check their work before administering complex or high-risk medications to a patient. The workflow, while critical, has traditionally required two nurses to be in the same place at the same time—an inefficiency that strains busy nurses.   With Remote Dual Sign, nurses can complete dual signs across their organization—no more running from room to room. After queuing up a patient’s medication on Rover, one of Epic’s mobile app, the nurse in the patient’s room can begin a video call with a nurse elsewhere in the organization, who visually verifies the medication before signing off. #healthcare #healthIT #nursing

A key benefit of MyChart: getting patients in for care sooner. In a recent study of MyChart’s Fast Pass, researchers at UCSF Health found that patients were seen a median of two weeks sooner. Fast Pass gives organizations the ability to automatically notify their waitlists when earlier appointment times become available, and gives patients the ability to accept new appointment times directly from MyChart. For this study, researchers studied a total of 60,660 Fast Pass offers sent between June 2022 and March 2023. Congrats to the folks at UCSF Health! Read more: https://lnkd.in/gfa3ssff #healthcare #healthIT #MyChart

Have you heard the story of industrial espionage at Epic? Judy tells the story best. “Early in Epic’s life, when we still resided in the basement of an apartment house, we hired someone who had worked at a Midwest IT company that was known for its ambulatory care practice management software. We’ll call him Bob. Bob seemed like a very knowledgeable guy and commented that his previous organization was puzzled over why customers like Epic so much. "From the start there were a lot of strange things—for example, he didn’t sign up for health insurance or other things that new staff always do, and his wife didn’t seem to have any plans to join him in Madison. “One evening, the facility manager for the apartment house called me at home to tell me that Bob was going through every file cabinet in the company and photocopying everything. On the last day of the month, when we came into the office, Bob’s desk was completely empty and there was no note or word from him. He had disappeared...” The rest of the story: https://lnkd.in/eDDWyRqw #healthcare #healthIT #workplace

On the morning of Saturday, March 2, our new friends at Albany Medical Center went live on Epic 😊 The project has been in the works for more than a year, and clinicians and staff at Albany Medical Center have been training since January of this year. Congrats, everyone, on a successful go-live! Read more: https://lnkd.in/g9cSpVfg #healthcare #healthIT #golive

Joon S Lee MD, CEO of Emory Healthcare, recently shared his take on using enterprise analytics to not just understand the past, but anticipate the future. “Here in Atlanta, we’re surrounded by companies like Delta and UPS that have built their success by using data to drive day-to-day operations and long-term decision-making,” he said. “Too often in healthcare, we use data to look only in the rearview mirror.” In his piece, Joon shares how Emory has used an analytics-driven culture to make crucial decisions about system-wide capacity, service line expansion, and more. Read more: https://lnkd.in/gP4Vm9Vy #healthcare #healthIT #data

Providing equitable healthcare starts with identifying each patients’ barriers to care. Houston Methodist increased screening for social drivers of health from less than 1% to 37% of patients. To turn that information into actionable insights, Houston Methodist identified community-based organizations (CBOs) whose services aligned with patients’ most common needs, including the Houston Food Bank, The Council on Recovery, and the Houston Women’s Shelter. Houston Methodist gave these CBOs access to Epic’s Healthy Planet Link, a portal that offers secure access to select patient information, so that users at both ends can see which services have been requested and provided. This makes the referral process smoother for clinicians because they don’t need to worry about navigating an unfamiliar interface or submitting referrals on paper—the whole workflow takes place in Epic. Congrats, folks! Read more: https://lnkd.in/gg9wShEi Credit: Photo by Brandon Price, Mural by Gonzo247 #healthcare #healthIT #SDOH

When the snow melts away, it can feel like a new dawn here on campus. Happy spring, everyone. Even if it reached us a month late 😉