Since computerized provider order entry was introduced as a vital part of their technology armamentarium, physicians have argued that, in order for CPOE to be effective, support and guidance are essential.
In their session at HIMSS15 in Chicago, "CPOE Support: Maintaining Physician Satisfaction," Dana Shelton, RN, Physician Liaison and Andrea Hall, RN, Manager of Clinical Informatics, both at Shawnee Mission Health, will help attendees understand how providing ongoing support, continued education and a point of contact for physicians can help streamline the order entry process.
Among the goals of their presentation:
• outlining their revamped physician on-boarding process
• describing how continuing support measures increase physician satisfaction
• describing methods of continued education
Shawnee Mission Medical Center in Merriam, Kan., initiated CPOE in August of 2011 and today all its departments are using the system, according to Shelton. Most of the orders, 90 percent, are entered by physicians while nurses do all charting and flow over from the monitor onto the computer. "Our goal is to go paperless by the end of this year," Shelton says.
Prior to going live with CPOE the computer was just a small part of the physician orientation process. "Since that time our informatics department has grown and become all clinical. So everyone who's assigned to physician support is a nurse and is able to support them clinically and guide them through their order entry process," Hall says. "We have different liaisons assigned to different specialties and different service lines that really understand how the nursing process integrates with the physician and vice versa.”
Nursing works side-by-side with the quality department to help physicians customize their orders to make sure they're meeting all of the required core measures.
"A lot of our support is just measured through direct feedback that our providers have given to administration," says Hall, who added that nursing also gets suggestions from physicians on ways to improve the process.
Hall asserts that it's important to have an identified support person who physicians can utilize – and it is vital to establish a relationship with them so that they know there is a true advocate within the facility.
Those physician liaisons work to assist doctors in meeting quality measures, decreasing phone calls and following up on concerns throughout the hospital.
Data from physician satisfaction reports revealed that negative comments regarding CPOE decreased by 50 percent from 2012 to 2013.
Hall says that it is hard to quantify direct quality improvement based on the system. "I think it’s more telling that we are able to improve our numbers with CPOE in place and have to assume our alerts and tools are assisting in that."
