The University of Tennessee Medical Center (UTMC) is the region’s only academic medical center, Magnet ® recognized hospital, and Level I Trauma Center. The 581-bed hospital also is home to the region’s only dedicated Heart Hospital, only adult and pediatric transplant center, and a Joint Commission/American Heart Association recognized Comprehensive Stroke Center. UTMC houses the region's only Level III private-room neonatal intensive care unit and serves as a regional perinatal center.
“JTS Health Partners was instrumental with providing direction on our CPOE strategy. They have operated as a highly professional organization with openness and honesty. Their project management, physician adoption leadership, and expertise within our Cerner clinical system were excellent.”
Mr. Thomas M. Fisher
Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (retired)
The Challenge
UTMC engaged JTS Health Partners (JTS) to provide Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE) advisory services related to UTMC’s Cerner electronic medical record system. The primary objective of this engagement was to determine the CPOE adoption readiness within UTMC through identifying and analyzing current challenges and developing recommended solutions to position UTMC to increase the adoption of CPOE by its physician community (Phase I).
The Collaborative Approach
JTS worked with Mr. Thomas M. Fisher, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer at UTMC, and senior physician leadership in providing the CPOE vision. This collaboration was essential as the organization had to change the culture and influence leadership with what “mattered most” in such a significant transformation. “JTS Health Partners CPOE advisor played a key role in serving as a thought leader with physician strategy and messaging,” explained Mr. Fisher.
JTS performed the analysis (Phase I) and remained engaged over a twelve-month period to assist with project management leadership for the go-live event. Due to the project’s importance, JTS had tremendous support from UTMC’s leadership so that collectively both parties could identify key clinical indicators that needed to be addressed in the redesign efforts. Both parties concluded that all clinical and process improvements and recommendations identified by JTS and UTMC should be pursued and implemented during their go-live (Phase II: implementation strategy/go-live).
The Accomplishments
As a result of a successful engagement, UTMC was well positioned with its planned go-live CPOE date, which was met successfully. The mitigation assessment, which included senior clinical leadership, highlight-ed the areas that needed attention in order to maintain a successful go-live event. The most material items accomplished were the communication involvement and effectiveness between key UTMC clinical leaders and physicians. Other key accomplishments included:
- Analyzing the organization’s readiness to increase the level of CPOE adoption
- Guiding and collaborating with UTMC’s management and Workflow Enhancement team on charter development, organization and governance, clinical communications, current state workflow mapping, education, and training
- Assisting in the development of an implementation roadmap that identified priorities, time frames, and action steps to remediate the gaps between the current state utilization of CPOE and UTMC’s desired future state
- Providing the clinical leadership (collectively with UTMC management) to redesign and roll out an optimal CPOE strategy so that the primary objective of increasing the adoption of CPOE hospital-wide was successful