What’s New With IT These Days?
There are several IT projects underway, with perhaps the most anticipated one being the switch from Groupwise to Outlook for emails, calendaring and other functions. We are currently implementing Microsoft Office 365, the web-based version of Office, and we should have everyone converted over to Outlook by the end of January 2016.
We’re also putting a mobile device tool in place to allow people to access the enterprise network on their phones and tablets. That needs to be completed before we roll out, beginning in spring 2016, the iPad version of Powerchart called Powerchart Touch. The combination of network access and email accounts on Outlook should dramatically improve provider access to and use of our choc.org email accounts.
The promised move to badge authentication into Cerner is also starting soon, but had to wait until we got rid of Groupwise (network incompatibilities). This is another one of those nasty interdependencies, but this project will get underway in the spring and carry over into the next fiscal year.
Is anything happening with CUBS?
The last major specialty to move to electronic documentation and applications is oncology. Work to implement Cerner’s oncology product will begin in May, but take at least a year to complete. Most of our development work outside of oncology will be focused on increasing the usability of CUBS, with the goal of improving provider education on using the system, reducing the number of clicks to do things, and creating specialty-specific views, when available, to better present needed information to the provider.
ICD-10 seemed to go better than anticipated. The world didn’t end after all! It was a very smooth transition to the new coding system. But that took over three years of hard work to complete, several millions of dollars, some very skilled people on the project, and some very savvy providers and coders using the system. Early information is that the bills not only went out on time, but are actually getting paid! We’re still having a few issues with Diagnosis Assistant and a bit of confusion over diagnoses that can’t be fully specified, but fixes and education are in progress.
I’ve heard a lot about population health and the pediatric system of care. How is that going?
We’ve implemented a new Cerner solution called the Healthe Intent platform. It’s a “big data” system that takes in data from multiple sources, including CUBS, and programs running on that data implement evidence-based disease registries for chronic diseases, report on compliance with the measures in those registries, and support our care managers helping patients and parents to navigate the healthcare system. We are piloting the registries in our Garden Grove clinic beginning Nov. 2, and will be rolling the registries out to the rest of the organization soon. We are helping Cerner develop the care management piece of the platform, and it should be ready in the second quarter of 2016.
