Data / Empowering High Performance

The identification, surgical intervention, management and lifetime clinical maintenance of transplant recipients are a case study of the needs around chronic disease management and collaborative care. This uniquely patient-centered national collaborative care solution helps reduce the potential for errors in an area of medicine where hundreds of pieces of data, such as blood type, medications, lab reports, test results and other information is needed to provide quality patient care. 

Computerized chronic disease solutions for transplant care eliminate the vast amount of paper charting necessary with transplant patients, who are tracked and monitored for life. The collaborative care of transplant patients includes multidisciplinary teams of specially trained physicians, coordinators, nurses, social workers, pharmacists, physical therapists, and psychologists who are experts in transplant care. 

Collaborative care solutions provide a patient-centered hub, connecting in-hospital and ambulatory electronic health records (EHRs) in conjunction with health information exchange (HIE) systems both locally and across the nation. The patient-centered care platform integrates inpatient care and outpatient clinic visits, supports physician order entry, physician documentation, nursing notes, etc., and connects with multiple other laboratory systems in conjunction with the solution specific to the organ transplant. The system should be designed to capture back-office documentation and workflow management, manage patients and populations, drive workflow follow-up on patients independent of scheduled clinic visits, and capture patient data. This data can then report on the multiple, strict regulatory requirements for transplant patients. 

Typical integration points include bidirectional interfaces from the hospital's EHR or regional HIE, including clinical data, medication reconciliation, problem lists, and clinical context object workgroup (CCOW) visual integration.  Population analytics and reporting are one of the crucial components of collaborative organ transplant care. This data is used daily, for example, to determine appropriate patients that are eligible to receive organ transplants based on clinical guidelines, as well as location of patients. Beyond research queries, population data informs and improves clinical outcomes. 

One example of a collaborative care platform for organ transplant is The Shands Transplant Center at the University of Florida. The Shands Transplant Center is ranked nationally for overall transplants performed. The center features multidisciplinary teams of specially trained physicians, coordinators, nurses, social workers, pharmacists, physical therapists and psychologists who are experts in transplant care. The program draws transplant patients from throughout the United States, and has been performing transplants since 1966.

Over the years, Shands has expanded its transplant program to a total of six specialties:  liver, kidney, pancreas, heart, lung, and heart-lung.  However, among the programs, there were six databases for tracking patient information - everything from height and weight to blood type and lab results. It was becoming very difficult to manage and maintain six disparate applications running on different operating systems and utilizing different software. Although the data was available, it was proving difficult to manage. 

With more than 300 transplants being performed every year, the need for a single collaborative care solution became increasingly apparent. The center's priority for a solution was data integrity, strong demographics, transplant phases, patient management and diagnostic testing. It implemented a collaborative care organ transplant platform with modules for its six. Shands now has converted 36 years worth of data in six transplant programs to a collaborative care organ transplant platform solution.

"After the data is entered by a transplant assistant, it is reviewed by a transplant coordinator, then reviewed by an information specialist, then reviewed by a senior information specialist, and ultimately reviewed by the physician," said Ian Jamieson, transplant manager at Shands. "We feel we have a strong system of checks and balances in place to satisfy the data needs of Dr. Richard Howard, medical director, Shands Transplant Center at UF, and our transplant staff."

The complexity of clinical, financial and administrative care needs of a transplant patient are staggering and therefore best served by a coordinated effort from all caregivers across the care continuum.

---

Paul Markham is the COO of HKS Medical Information Systems, a developer of software products that improve the quality of patient care and workflow management, and provide operational efficiencies for the healthcare industry.



Tweet

Follow @PorterResearch

Resource Center

Connect

         

For more information, contact us at:
info@porterresearch.com