Welcome to the Office of the Chief Medical Information Officer, where we create a bridge between clinicians and the information technology that increasingly surrounds them.
PennChart
Perhaps the most vital element of our work is our contribution to creating and maintaining PennChart as a safe, efficient, and effective electronic health record for the health system.
In partnership with Information Services, entity informatics leadership, and clinical subject matter experts, we ensure PennChart holds to its core principles:
- Consistent to promote safe, clear and reliable exchange of information.
- Integrated to support seamless information sharing across health system information technology platforms.
- Modular to enable responsive customization while promoting a standard and unified Penn Way of caring for patients without compromising consistency.
- Accurate to provide accurate data to drive clinical decision support, population management, and performance measurement.
- Collaborative to reflect our care team model and optimize efficient teamwork by sharing one record for every patient.
- Lean to highlight important information and minimize risk from double documentation.
- Transparent to provide patients and providers with access to all necessary data and ensure open communication regarding care.
Data Science
Predictive Healthcare is focused on deploying predictive healthcare applications with re-designed healthcare pathways that greatly improve patient health and wellness. The Data Science team works in an integrated fashion with clinical teams to enable interventions for better patient care, provide predictive information at the point of care, and advance the goals of service lines and departments.
Human Factors/Human Computer Interaction
We take a person-centered approach to provide technology solutions to support patient care, including accurate and usable electronic health records, actionable predictive health applications, and effective population health tools. Using methodologies from the fields of human factors and human computer interaction, we optimize system implementation, process improvement, and healthcare innovations in partnership with clinicians and technologists in the health system.
Population Health
Using myPennMedicine (our patient portal) and other information technology resources, we aspire to partner with patients in optimizing care and management of health outcomes for both acute problems and chronic disease. Population management tools such as Health Maintenance and dashboards enable providers and care managers to track the health and care gaps of patients whether in the office or at home. Face to face reminders and outreach between visits help to close gaps and encourage patients to follow their personal goals for wellness.
Mobile Applications
Along with other innovators in the health system and the university, we develop, pilot test, and deploy mobile applications to improve outcomes and experience for patients and families as well as for clinicians in their daily work of patient care. The Office of the CMIO works in partnerships with Information Services, Center for Health Care Innovation, and Marketing. Each entity is testing, evaluating, and overseeing the scale up of solutions involving mobile tools.
Telemedicine (Connected Care Center and Network Telemedicine)
As the landscape of healthcare changes and becomes more diverse, the needs of patients and providers are also changing. Penn Medicine's Connected Care telemedicine programs are using the latest advances in technology to help patients and providers access Penn Medicine specialty care without having to travel to Philadelphia.
Clinical Handoff Process and Tools
Handoff or "signoff" of information from one shift or point of care to another is a common event in clinical care; it is also a time when critical information can easily be missed or misunderstood. We have observed and analyzed the process of handoff in the inpatient setting across many different specialties to optimize the handoff process, create a tool to support handoff communication, and integrate handoff notes with documentation in the electronic health record.
Integrated Clinical Decision Support (CDS)
Using multiple tools, we bring together experts from all of the UPHS hospital entities to determine the best way to provide Clinical Decision Support (CDS) using tools available in the electronic health record. We endeavor to achieve the 5 rights of CDS:
- The right information (evidence-based guidance, response to clinical need)
- To the right people (entire care team - including the patient)
- Through the right channels (e.g., EHR, mobile device, patient portal)
- In the right intervention formats (e.g., order sets, flow-sheets, dashboards, patient lists),
- At the right points in workflow for decision making or action
Clinical Pathways
The goal of the Penn Pathways Program is to facilitate the translation of evidence into practice at the point of care, to improve patient outcomes. In her role as the program manager, Dr. Emilia Flores works closely with the office of the chief medical information officer and many others to facilitate the development, implementation, and evaluation of clinical pathways at Penn Medicine, to increase the impact of the program for our patients and providers.
The Penn Pathways Program has facilitated the development of over 165 pathways to date. We can provide assistance at any point in the implementation lifecycle and welcome queries about how the program can work with clinicians and staff within the health system to expedite the translation of evidence into practice.
Guidelines for Clinical Practice with PennChart
Capitalizing on the standardization work and principled design that went into the implementation of PennChart across the health system, our "Guidelines for Clinical Practice PennChart Electronic Health Record" document serves as a mainstay reference. This guide should be used in daily practice, following governance and decisions made around changes to PennChart content and the platform. The document establishes best practices for usage and documentation, and provides guidelines for system implementation and optimization. The guidelines are reviewed on a quarterly basis and are updated when there's consensus on new or updated information that needs to be shared.
Collaboration
Our work would not be possible without collaboration across UPHS and the University of Pennsylvania. Our collaborators include:
Related Organizations