Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) have been firmly established in every health setting for more than a decade, yet they continue to be a source of frustration for most users. Physicians are plagued by the never-ending task of entering data into EMRs, without seeing a meaningful impact on practice efficiency or the health outcomes of their patients.
This problem is not unique to Phoenix Children’s; it is a widespread issue that many, if not most, health systems face even today. Acknowledging our physicians’ frustrations, we committed to leveraging EMR data more effectively, aiming to enhance engagement, demonstrate the tangible value of their efforts, and, most importantly, use this data to produce sustainable improvements in the patient outcomes that mattered most.
Proving Value is a Critical First Step
We launched a big data initiative by thinking creatively and strategically about all the ways we could utilize the vast trove of information stored in our internally developed data warehouse.
If we could make it easy for our data analysts to quickly dissect and extract exactly what they needed, and they could deliver the right data to the right users at the right time, we knew we could create significant change. After evaluating whether we should select a vendor partner or take control and execute solutions in-house, we dove in and chose the latter.
Since 2017, our IT team has successfully developed more than 50 custom-built dashboards through a successful collaborative partnership between clinicians and data analysts. Over the last several years, the process and methodology of building custom clinical solutions have been fine-tuned into an efficient, streamlined operation. The time between identifying a high-priority clinical need to implementing a fully functional custom dashboard can be a matter of weeks.
The dashboards have become invaluable tools for clinicians across our ambulatory, inpatient, emergency, surgery and intensive care settings. They are advancing care excellence by combining real-time patient information and clinical support to assist our clinicians in delivering high-quality care, while ensuring patient safety remains a top priority.
Extending Bedside Innovation Into The Home
While we continued to move the needle on clinical care and patient outcomes in-house, we started contemplating where we could go next. How could we collect similar patient-generated data in the home and expand our clinical capabilities beyond the hospital walls to gain a more comprehensive view of patient’s health and progress over time? To bridge the gap, we developed several home monitoring programs that offer vital insights across a variety of clinical conditions:
- A Ketogenic Diet Therapy App for patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. The app monitors ketones, blood glucose, and any concerning symptoms and transmits the information to an on-call ketogenic dietician who shares the findings with the clinical care teams so intervention can be administered, if needed. This enabled the team to initiate Ketogenic diet treatment safely at home even in infants who otherwise often require inpatient hospitalization during the critical initiation phase.
- A Cleft Palate App that tracks a baby’s weight and feeding patterns and sends data to the clinical team daily. Since the app was launched in 2023, more than 100 families have submitted over 1,700 responses enabling the cleft palate team to remotely monitor the feeding and growth of their children. Patients receiving at-home monitoring noted a statistically significant reduction of in-person visits with a speech-language pathologist compared to patients prior to instituting the home monitoring program (3.9 visits vs. 5.4 visits).
- A Leukemia App that tracks nausea, vomiting, pain control, medication adherence, and early symptoms of life-threatening infection in patients with newly diagnosed leukemia. Preliminary data show a reduction in readmission rates from 61% to 27% during the first four weeks after diagnosis.
The integration of apps and dashboards has revolutionized the way our clinicians access and utilize data. By providing real-time information, these tools empower us to make faster and more informed decisions, ultimately enhancing patient safety and improving health outcomes across the entire system. This streamlined access to data enables our clinicians to respond promptly to changes in patient conditions, identify trends, and personalize treatments, leading to more efficient and effective care.
While the burden of EMR data entry will likely never be fully eliminated, if more hospitals will optimally use EMR data, more physicians will see a true return on investment for their time and effort, specifically in terms of meaningful impact on patient outcomes.
When physicians adopt your ideas and clamor to be the next user on the app development list, you know you hit the clinical jackpot by consistently creating game-changing solutions for physicians and their patients.
About Vinay Vaidya
Vinay Vaidya, MD, is Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Information Officer at Phoenix Children’s, where he bridges the gap between information technology and patient care.