This am has been an interesting juxtaposition of following Twitter during the state of the science, and being reminded of the power of a graciously led small group meeting.
I would not qualify myself as a skeptic, but more as a user without training in the multiple areas for which a Clinical informatics system can be adapted to improve our care, And having recently been faced with the common problem of being told the system at my new institution will take months to change, I was hopeful for new quick tools.
Joy Goebel, Kelly Chong, Sangeeta Ahluwalia and Karl Lorenz gave an organized presentation of the issues involved in the why, how what and so what of Clinical info tools.
We were reminded these tools and systems are very early in development and that the technology will progress even as we work to develop tools.
We were reminded of the need to work with stakeholders and end users to develop clinical information tools, and if the application of Implementation Science (a term I had not heard before).
Greater La VA system has a consult tool, but not other notes yet, and is just beginning to generate reports. They seem to have a great and very multidisciplinary development group, and I they may create national VA templates and reports that others can review. It had nice features like embedded tools like the PPS and embedded references which would be great for multiple users to help standardize documents.
There were many good questions asked about limitations, and I realize that the issue still returns to understanding my system and what its benefits and limits are. Any other Cerner users with templates for notes or ideas about how to highlight goals of care info in the large volume of documents generated?
I learned much from blogging, as it caused me to think and listen more critically. Thanks to the academy for the opportunity.
Diane Dietzen, MD Baystate Medical Center