Improving rates of screening and prevention by leveraging existing information systems.
BACKGROUND
In 1997 Virginia Mason Health System (VMMC), a vertically integrated hospital and multispecialty group practice, had no process or system to deliver the right patient clinical data, in the right form, at the right place--when providers needed it for effective patient care. Without any new investment in technology, a work group of five individuals leveraged existing, primarily paper-based information systems to launch development and implementation of a provider prompting tool--a primary care and prevention (PCP) report--which prompted providers to complete screening, prevention, and disease management services at every patient appointment.
The work group developed and pilot tested the report and created a mechanism by which the report could be delivered just in time before each patient's appointment. The report integrated information from independent appointment scheduling, laboratory results reporting, patient demographics, and billing data sources. MEASURING THE PCP REPORT'S IMPACT: The results of two separate analyses demonstrate improvement in rates of screening and prevention across VMMC soon after the PCP report became available. These results led senior leadership to make the PCP report's utilization a systemwide imperative.


CONCLUSIONS
The PCP report is used by nearly all primary care providers as a prompt to complete screening, prevention, and disease management services at every patient appointment.
Neil
Nancy
N
Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle, USA. nancy.neil@vmmc.org
D001071:Appointments and Schedules; D020000:Decision Support Systems, Clinical; D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000458:organization & administration / Q000592:standards*; D019468:Disease Management; D006123:Group Practice / Q000458:organization & administration; D006770:Hospitals, Group Practice / Q000458:organization & administration; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems / Q000592:standards*; D007324:Institutional Management Teams; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D009819:Office Visits; D019982:Organizational Case Studies; D009936:Organizational Innovation; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D017064:Process Assessment, Health Care; D012042:Registries; D018511:Systems Integration; D017749:Total Quality Management / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014600:Utilization Review / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014861:Washington