How to Optimize EHR Use in Gastroenterology Practices

Implementing strategies to optimize electronic health record (EHR) use can save time, improve the doctor-patient relationship, and reduce burnout, a new practice management article suggests.

Michelle Kang Kim, MD, PhD, chair of gastroenterology at Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, and colleagues provide EHR improvement strategies and examples that can be adapted for use in a variety of gastroenterology clinic settings. 

Their article, which was published online in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, includes the following suggestions, among others:

Develop optimization teams. An example is SPRINT, a short, intensive team-based intervention at the University of Colorado Health, Aurora, Colorado, that developed specialty-specific tools, provided EHR efficiency training, and helped streamline workflows. The optimization project increased EHR satisfaction scores and reduced documentation time.Reroute low-acuity messages. Low-risk medication refills or appointment requests can be handled by nurses and medical assistants. This strategy has helped reduce the inbox burden.Create order sets for complex treatment dosing. One example is Cleveland Clinic’s Helicobacter pylori order set, which enables clinicians to quickly place orders with built-in dosages.Personalize EHR drop-down menus. Incorporate inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) severity scores, biopsy sampling, resection protocols, specimen container numbering, and other workflow-specific documentation into the EHR.Employ medical scribes. These professionals can serve as personal assistants, supporting care teams and reducing clinician documentation time. Alternatively, clinical support staff, such as nurses, can assist with documentation and messages, helping to reduce physician burnout. “These models could be particularly useful in GI specialties that require a multidisciplinary approach, for example, IBD and hepatology,” the authors write.Provide real-time training on best practices. There is no widely accepted EHR training curriculum for students, and experienced physicians face time constraints in learning new practices. Real-time training can help clinicians at all levels optimize their time outside the clinic.

In addition, the authors addressed novel tools and strategies that have been recently deployed and/or are in development, which are based largely on artificial intelligence (AI), natural language processing, and speech recognition. For now, these tools are digitizing data to help automate some EHR tasks, supporting communications with patients, and assisting in clinical decision making.

However, the authors note that although current optimization tools are promising, “there is still a lack of knowledge about their usability and effects on provider and patient well-being. More research is needed to evaluate current methodologies and design intelligent tools for the future that will help GI providers overcome the EHR-related obstacles specific to our field and harness the enormous potential of AI in optimizing the busy GI practice.”

This work received no external funding, and the authors disclosed no conflicts. 

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