Guthrie’s Clinical EMR Team Wins Application Excellence Award from AEHIA

ANN ARBOR, MI, Nov. 13, 2018 – The Clinical EMR Team at Guthrie took a multipronged approach to update their enhancement delivery process. The strategy won them greater adoption and collaboration with providers, nurses and patients – and the Application Team Excellence Award from the Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Applications (AEHIA). The award was announced on Nov. 1 at the AEHIA Fall Summit in San Diego.

 

The Guthrie team used three Epic tools to help them identify features to improve clinical and financial outcomes, apply best practices and target appropriate providers and workflows. They also updated their change management process to deliver enhancements every eight weeks. The new process allowed analysts to better plan and prioritize, aligned analysts with trainers and eliminated frequent and surprise enhancements.

 

“This update has been a change in culture for our end users,” said Terri Couts, vice president of clinical systems and the Epic program at Guthrie and a member of the award-winning team. “Instead of changes occurring every week, they can now plan as to which changes are coming when. This has led to an improved adoption of enhancements.”

 

The team achieved measurable success on all three tools and reported increases in enhancement usage from an average of 40-50 percent to 70-85 percent. They now participate in various advisory committees to discuss enhancements and their delivery at Guthrie, a nonprofit integrated health system located in north central Pennsylvania and upstate New York that serves patients from an 11-county service area. Guthrie is a member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network and is the first health system based in Pennsylvania and New York to join this network.

 

“The Application Team Excellence Award is designed to encourage and reward improvements in teamwork engagement and structure that benefit the organization,” said John Henderson, AEHIA Board chair and vice president and CIO at Children’s Hospital of Orange County. “The Guthrie team developed a framework that served as a road map and allowed them to measure progress. The end results are a stronger relationship with their partners and better outcomes for the health system.”

 

Besides Couts, other award-winning team members include:

·        Alison Bidlack, application manager-innovations

·        Cassie Coyle, training manager

·        Sara Eiklor, application manager, ambulatory and population health

·        Sue Northrup, clinical applications director-clinical apps

·        Lori Stevens, application manager, access and revenue cycle

·        Gail Strausser, application manager, PMO

 

The Association for Executives in Healthcare Information Applications (AEHIA) was launched in 2014 as an educational, professional development and networking platform for chief applications officers and other senior healthcare IT applications leaders. With more than 530 members, AEHIA is advancing the role of healthcare IT applications leaders through education, collaboration and advocacy in support of applications that improve healthcare delivery and efficiency. For more Information, please visit aehia.org. 

 

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) is an executive organization dedicated to serving chief information officers (CIOs), chief medical information officers (CMIOs), chief nursing information officers (CNIOs) and other senior healthcare IT leaders. With more than 2,800 members in 51 countries and over 150 healthcare IT business partners and professional services firms, CHIME provides a highly interactive, trusted environment enabling senior professional and industry leaders to collaborate; exchange best practices; address professional development needs; and advocate the effective use of information management to improve the health and healthcare in the communities they serve. For more information, please visit chimecentral.org.

 

Candace Stuart

Director of Communications and Public Relations, CHIME

734.665.0000