Episode 6 « iHT² Health IT Webinar - Leveraging Meaningful Use to Accomplish Practice Transformation 12.11.12

The Emory Clinic has had the benefit of electronic medical record capabilities for close to 20 years. With the implementation of our current EMR in 2005, certain tools have been adopted quickly, while others have been slower to be incorporated in the day to day work flow of the average practice. As Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records became an integral part of the US Healthcare Reform initiatives, leadership of The Emory Clinic began to understand that constructive incorporation of the required program elements into daily practice workflow would require a very intentional redesign of that workflow. Given the size of the practice (close to 2000 providers) and its geographic dispersion, coupled with the integration with Emory Healthcare’s multiple hospitals, the team knew that this redesign would take tremendous coordination, planning and execution of process improvement methodology. The faculty practice operations team joined forces with a local consulting team that utilized a very disciplined process improvement method to redesign, standardize and implement a practice wide workflow that created consistent experiences for patients, allows providers to qualify for Meaningful Use achievement, and set the stage for future workflow improvements. The leadership team from Emory will share the background, decision making, strategic planning and execution methods used during this project. Learning Objectives: • Benefits of standardization of workflow in a large multi-specialty practice • Process Improvement strategies that can help create engagement for change • Balancing standardization and customization in the practice environment • Application of Meaningful Use requirements in the ambulatory faculty practice setting