Abstract
In April 2016, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) went live with the Epic electronic health records (EHR) system, replacing a variety of EHRs that previously existed in different departments throughout the hospital. At the time of implementation, the Vocera® Badge Communication System, a wireless hands-free communication device distributed to perioperative team members, had increased perioperative communication flow and efficiency. As a quality improvement effort to better understand communication patterns during an EHR go-live, we monitored our Vocera call volume and user volume before, during and after our go-live. We noticed that call volume and user volume significantly increased during our immediate go-live period and quickly returned to baseline levels. We also noticed that call volume increased during periods of unplanned EHR downtime long after our immediate go-live period. When planning the implementation of a new EHR, leadership must plan for and support this critical communication need at the time of the go-live and must also be aware of these needs during unplanned downtime.
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Abbreviations
- MGH:
-
Massachusetts General Hospital
- SPC:
-
Statistical process control
- EHR:
-
Electronic health records
- EMR:
-
Electronic medical records
- OR:
-
Operating room
- σ:
-
Standard deviation
- VoIP:
-
Voice-over internet protocol
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Acknowledgements
All authors would like to thank the MGH Perioperative Communications Committee. T.F. thanks Joseph Szokol, M.D.
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Dr. Wilton Levine receives royalties for intellectual property licensed to Codonics, Inc., and Western Enterprises, Inc. Tynan Friend and Samantha Jennings declare no conflicts of interest.
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This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.
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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Systems-Level Quality Improvement
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Friend, T.H., Jennings, S.J. & Levine, W.C. Communication Patterns in the Perioperative Environment During Epic Electronic Health Record System Implementation. J Med Syst 41, 22 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-016-0674-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10916-016-0674-3