Short Link: http://j.mp/8QUWct
Last week I attended a presentation by Dr. Armand Gonzalzles on “Workflow Management EMR Systems and the Primary Care Physician” at the HIMSS conference in Chicago.
As an experiment and a means to share my experience I invited members of the EncounterPRO community to follow my twitter updates during that presentation. These “tweets” turned out to be a pretty concise outline of Dr. Gonzalzles’s salient points so I am posting them here.
Especially interesting were the questions (starting about 11:11 AM) both in terms of quantity (I could only text fast enough to catch every other question) and quality (especially in the way they drilled down into the whole “workflow management” concept).
I include tweets here from the presentation that followed because that speaker specifically commented (12:17AM and 12:28AM) on both the relevance of Dr. Gonzalzles’ presentation and that the EHR he uses apparently has much more customizable workflow than is typical for most EHRs on the market.
(For those familiar with Twitter, I have reversed the order of the updates so that non-Twitter users can read in order from top to bottom. For those unfamiliar with Twitter, the following texts were entered by thumb and therefore the typos come with the territory!)
 |
chuckwebster Hi, am trying on Twitter for size and thought you might be interested. Am in Chicago at the Health Information Management Systems Society 10:59 PM Apr 4th from web |
|
chuckwebster Currently at Dr G’s talk, to begin 15 minutes 10:16 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster About 120 attendees, not bad for sunday morning! 10:50 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Up to 200! 10:52 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Excellent presentation so far! (Mentioned my 2003 white paper EMR Workflow ManagementF The Workflow of Workflow) 10:56 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Slide: Workflow Definitions: The Heart of WFMS (screen capture of EncounterPRO’s workflow editor) 11:00 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster …Customizable and anticipatory… 11:01 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster …customization per specialty (primary care or specialist)… 11:03 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster …favorite consultants referrals default workfow with correct phone number email etc… 11:05 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Assign work lists dependent on resource and role (nurse vs admin)… 11:06 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Resources: front desk, nurse, physican… 11:07 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster 2 person vs 3 person office workflow … 11:08 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster On the last side and in summary I was quoted!!!! “In the words of Chuck Webster, MD…” 11:08 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster 11:08 AM Apr 5th from txt 11:08 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Question: How did patients react? Pleased! Excited! Legible prescriptions. E sign in. Decision support. Digital pictures of child in system 11:11 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster How did you educated yourself about workflow? Cut out steps, combine steps, adjust workflow, combination reading and practical experience 11:12 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster How interact with external paper oriented organizations? Scan in. Will be awkward until others catch up? 11:13 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Downtime? Twice in 10 years due to power outage. Used paper and reentered. One disaster: had backup so just inconvenient. 11:15 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Is it easy th change workflow (from student)? Yes. Value of workflow management system screens are anticipatory, easy to learn new sequence 11:16 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster How change workflow? (Stubborn providers, resistance to change) Must prepare staff for change, show them the system, train them to comfort) 11:18 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Continued answer: learning curve is much shorter because sequence of screens fit each users role. Simple and fun to use 11:19 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster What system do you use for 10 years? EncounterPRO from EncounterPRO Healthcare Resources (used to be JMJ) 11:20 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Are you tempted to change EHRs? No, EncounterPRO is still the easiest to use and mantain that I have seen 11:21 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Lots of questions! 11:22 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Dr G’s vision local ehr talking to local systems talking to state systems (no just concept, but hopefully in the near future it will happen) 11:25 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Smaller vendors or big vendors to get customizable workflow?: smaller 11:25 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Are you customizing workflow or code? Workflow, set up to shorten workflow for simpler problems. 11:27 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Did you have to draw your workflow? No EncounterPRO was already very close to my workflow. 11:28 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster With emr workflow managment everythings flows smoothly (not like a hunt and peck word processor like most EHRs) 11:29 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Multiple workflows for multiple patients? Easy, workflow are based on diagnosis or treatment a different workflow is triggered 11:32 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster How long to implement system? Are new codes or drugs problematic? Week! New stuff easy to add (or delete) 11:33 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Are you reimbursed for emails? Yes, not as much, but much less time 11:34 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Can pat ed materials be included in workflow? Does it save you time (less teaching)? Yes. 11:35 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Moderator: Dr G is Davies award winner and his winning application is on HIMSS website (and my blog!) 11:36 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Talk ends: 10 people crowd around DR G (ROI, lifestyle, and pat satisfaction) 11:40 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Is it certified? Yes 11:40 AM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Wow! That was intense trying to twitter an entire hour long talk. 40 tweets. I’ll see if I can get Dr G’s powerpoint and post it. 12:10 PM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Attending EHR For The Medical Practice (Kimker) presentation. MASSPRO (seen some wonderful forms for collecting workflow data from them) 12:13 PM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Big compliment to Dr G’s previous presentation on workflow (this pres is more about analyzing workflow) 12:17 PM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Redesign workflow to accommadate ehr vs beneft from ehr 12:14 PM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Been reflecting on Dr G’s questions, at least 6-7 actually used to phrase “workflow management system” including several solo practitioners 12:25 PM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Speaker said that Dr G’s ehr has specific workflows for specific tasks, but most EHRs cnnt do tht, so may have to use customized templates 12:28 PM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster That’s it for ed sessions today. Nw to find a coffee house, get online, and do some work. Thnks fr following my twitter updates this morning 12:58 PM Apr 5th from txt |
|
chuckwebster Audience member caught up with me, is your system enterprise ready, what do you mean? Handle multiple specialty workflows, absolutely! 1:31 PM Apr 5th from txt |