Matthew Malachowski, PharmD, MHA, BCPS, System Director, Population Health and Ambulatory Care; and W. Michael Ellerbe, MD, Senior Physician Associate Medical Director, Ochsner Health  

Very few physicians attended medical school to answer email. And while automated processes, telehealth, and advances in technology have improved the patient experience and general delivery of care, it has led to a greater administrative burden on physicians, negatively impacting their experience. Learn how Ochsner Health improved in-basket management for refill requests and prescription authorizations. 

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Describe the traditional process for managing in-basket messages, such as refill requests and Rx authorizations for a patient taking chronic medications.
• Discuss process improvements available to physician groups to manage these in-basket messages safely and effectively.
• Describe opportunities to deploy technology to support in-basket message management and decrease physician time managing in-basket messages.

Tatjana Kolevska, MD, Medical Director, National Cancer Excellence Program, Kaiser Permanente, The Permanente Medical Group

Physician groups and health systems can reduce cancer’s impact on population health by strengthening their telehealth programs. This presentation identifies methods for comprehensive virtual cancer care, discusses how to determine patients’ and medical providers’ readiness for virtual care, and reviews how to scale expert care delivery on a national level.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Describe the clinical and operational components of comprehensive virtual cancer care.
• Determine whether patients and providers desire virtual cancer care as part of a treatment program.
• Describe the opportunities and barriers to building a Virtual Cancer Center.

Jordan Matthews, MSHA, RHIA, Director, Ambulatory Training and Support, Multi-Specialty Group; and Marcie Todd, BS, MLT (ASCP) CM, Lead Provider Optimization Specialist, Ambulatory EMR Support, OSF HealthCare

Providers voicing feelings of burnout related to EHR in-basket work, and reports confirming increased message volumes and time spent per month, led to an initiative for comprehensive changes at OSF Healthcare. Learn how a multidisciplinary group engaged ambulatory providers, gleaning clinical expertise and improving socialization of in-basket “spring cleaning” efforts and innovative technical solutions.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Describe the methods used to identify, quantify, and communicate problems with in-baskets.
• Identify the resources utilized to develop the solutions to these problems.
• Discuss the advantages of provider subject matter experts and the collaboration with other multidisciplinary teams.

•    Elaborate the elements required for ongoing engagement and improvement.

Brynn N. Howard, MHA, Operations Administrator, Office of Access Management; and Skylar Tate, MHSA, Administrative Fellow, Mayo Clinic

Patient scheduling is no longer simply answering the phone and scheduling a patient. The digital environment has submersed schedulers into multi-channel communication, leading them to feel overwhelmed as they try to multitask patient phone calls, work queue order scheduling, in-baskets, emails, and eFaxes. This presentation will highlight the importance of implementing daily prioritization plans to enable efficient completion of workload. 

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Create a framework and implement daily task prioritization.
• Support scheduling teams through change management.
• Build competency in using data to drive decision-making within scheduling teams.

Kendra Ask-Carlson, MS, Operations Manager, Office of Access Management; and Simone Sursely, MS, Operations Manager, Medical and Administrative Support Operations, Mayo Clinic

The collection of external medical records is vital for triaging acuity, reducing testing duplication, and receiving a complete history to diagnose and treat patients. The collection is cumbersome in our disparate national health system, causing delays in patient care. Learn how Mayo Clinic discovered that centralizing a records collection team overcomes the above challenges.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Describe the gaps in the medical records collection, as well as their impact on healthcare access and utilization.
• Implement a centralized and standardized process flow to improve operation efficiencies.
• Describe the positive impact this process flow has on patient medical needs, access, utilization of care, and finances.

Eric Lombardi, MHA, MBA, Hospitalist Program Manager, CI and Strategic Planning, Intermountain Health

Learn how a multi-site hospitalist medicine group was able to compile and analyze KPIs and metrics for the creation of measurable goals and improvement areas. This case study presentation will use both internal comparisons (comparing Intermountain Health’s groups to each other) and external top decile comparisons.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Describe how to develop an action plan and continuous improvement goals tailored to their location, based on internal and external data.
• Define how different metrics (clinical, operational, patient care, safety) are able to be analyzed and presented to create measurable goals.
• Explain how internal and external data can be analyzed, both individually and complimentary, to assess areas of improvement and areas where no improvement is needed.

Carrie Deetz, Coordinator Supervisor, Clinic Operations; and Kimberly Stolp, Coordinator, Clinic Operations, Mayo Clinic 

Learn how Mayo Clinic tackled a gap in their non-licensed delegate staff on how to appropriately reconcile medications in the electronic health record (EHR). The lack of knowledge included correct name, dosage, and frequency, along with adding and discontinuing medications and accurately transferring information from Care Everywhere into the patient’s record.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Explain the medication reconciliation processes with confidence.
• Complete mediation reconciliation accurately.
• Create and utilize a Competency Checklist appropriately.
• Provide pediatric guidelines when working with 13-17 age groups.

Matthew J. Mulligan, MD, Assistant Professor, Division of General Internal Medicine, Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, University of Utah Health

Patient messages are important, but they can overwhelm clinic staff and providers. Learn how a health system used portal redesign and a standardized, protocol-based process to change patient behavior and reduce provider administrative burden, including attaining buy-in for standardization and protocol-based responses and considerations for a large-scale process change.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Evaluate their patient portal through the lens of the patient behavior it drives.
• Assess whether their group is a good fit for a standardized, protocol-driven process for responding to patient calls and portal messages.
• Describe the surmountable complexities of aligning message handling across clinics and a call center.

Joan Broers, RN, MS, Operations Manager; and Jodell Nelsen, Operations Manager, Mayo Clinic

Building the infrastructure and operations to allow patients to self-schedule their healthcare appointments has many facets. The technology build needs to align with your organization’s EHR priorities. Implementation requires strong change management skills, close collaborations, and communications across all team members, as well as excellent data reporting.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Describe the importance of how technology and system experts can help innovate and implement new advancements.
• Discuss the change management approaches needed to implement patient self-scheduling functionality in the practice.
• Identify the communication avenues and collaborations across the care team and leaders at multiple levels of the organization.
• Explain the impact to patient experience and care team operations.

Eric Lombardi, MHA, MBA, Hospitalist Program Manager, CI and Strategic Planning; and Heidi Parker, RN, BSN, Hospitalist Coordinator Lead, Intermountain Health

Learn about Intermountain Health’s set-up and coordination of transferring hospitalist patients using a telehealth service.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Create a plan with key stakeholders to gather pertinent information to facilitate the creation of a source of truth.
• Explore and develop tools for information-gathering to create the source of truth.
• Develop their own method and process for admissions and transfers via telehealth, by using Intermountain Health’s example and adapting it to their needs.
• Describe the complex interactions between hospital medicine providers and staff, other service lines, and demonstration when it comes to patient care and quality improvement.

Nitant Chakranarayan, Director, Data and Analytics, Houston Methodist

Houston Methodist has seen tremendous growth over the last 18 years. Measurement and benchmarking have been the differentiators; however, in the past it was done manually—taking a lot of time and effort. Self-service analytics helped bridge the gap and now leadership can access metrics in couple of clicks.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Describe how leadership can monitor performance and make adjustments to drive clinical performance to improve patient care and outcomes.
• Explain Houston Methodist’s solution architecture, design, and implementation methodology of their Analytics Portal and dashboards.
• Describe actionable benefits, best practices, and lessons learned from Houston Methodist’s experience.

Jill Reeves, Vice President Quality, Baylor Scott & White Medical Group; and Justin Johnson, Vice President of Telemedicine, Baylor Scott & White

Learn about the key strategies and improvements that Baylor Scott & White realized over a two-year period – positively impacting their physician, patient and care team experience.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Name two interventions that improve the physician experience.
• Discuss how expanding existing digital infrastructure can enhance the patient experience.
• Explain why on-going provider and care team support are essential components of successful clinic operations.
• List three components of a comprehensive solution to advancing the care team experience.

Becky Phares, RN BSN, Manager of Wellness Informatics, Novant Health

Learn how Novant Health developed a Wellness Informatics Team to provide their patients with the most remarkable care, by means of supporting and equipping their providers with the tools necessary to accomplish this goal—EHR-related or beyond.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Describe the Stanford Model of Professional Fulfillment.
• Describe the commitment to Efficiency of Practice.
• Delineate what Wellness Informatics is and how a Wellness Informatics team can support them.

Angela Sofronis, MHA, PA, Assistant Vice President, Central Region Ambulatory Administration; and Marianna Karavolias, MD, FACP, Pediatrician and Ambulatory Associate Chief Medical Information Officer, Northwell Health

Learn how to create a cross-functional team with members who are subject matter experts in operational and EHR-related issues. These team members would have knowledge in AEHR, scheduling systems, revenue-related systems, office workflow and culture, technical back-end reporting, analysis and presentation of performance data, and consulting and interpersonal skills, and would partner with leadership to streamline operations.

Upon completion of this session, participants should be able to:

• Diagnose inefficiencies via optimization of EHR usage and knowledge, accessibility, revenue, finance reporting, and operational workflow.
• Improve provider satisfaction and patient access.