Clinical Data Access
Improving access to clinical data for Physicians at UVMHN
PROBLEM
Recent survey of Physicians at UVMHN indicate that "access to data" is a major concern for provider satisfaction and data access challenges may be negatively impacting Physician retention rates at UVMHN.
OUTCOME
Analytics Education Program: An important outcome of this work was the design and implementation of an analytics education program, which enabled staff, clinicians & leaders to self-serve data in Epic and helped our organization meet Epic Honor Roll requirements
Project Overview
hiCOlab worked with the Data Management Office (DMO) and Medical Group to identify opportunities for improving access to clinical data for Physicians. With the goal of supporting the DMO's strategic priority for FY24 to "Improve on the FY23 Shared Services voice of the customer satisfaction score by 10%.
Team: Jewel Thompson-Adiuku, Sam Grise
Role: Design Research, Service Blueprinting
This case study will share the human-centered design process and how that methodology informed our user-centered research with data analysts and Physicians to generate key insights about their needs. I also explain the facilitation design, which was instrumental in guiding the direction of this work. There were many insights generated from this work that were instrumental in informing the DMO strategy for FY24.
Approach
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Problem Exploration Workshop – Define the problem and develop the goals of the project.
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Research Questionnaire – Define the goals of the research activities, identify important data, and confirm key stakeholders.
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Literature Review – Reviewing a breadth of existing literature and studies to gain added context of the current landscape and goals of the research.
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Semi-structured interviews – Conducted interviews to understand the experience of clinical staff (e.g. Physicians & Quality Improvement Partners) around data access.
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30 interview participants; 3 Partner hospitals
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Service Blueprinting Workshop – Visually co-create the current state of the DMO data requesting process.
🔍 Defining the Problem
Problem Exploration Workshop
DMO and Medical Group leadership along with other stakeholders from these areas came together for a facilitated workshop to accomplish the following goals:
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Build a shared understanding of the issues experienced by physicians when trying to access data.
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Identify desired impacts and potential barriers around improving clinical data access.
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Identify high-risk questions and assumptions that need to be addressed in doing this work.
Participants read and sort stakeholder interview data they gathered as prework for the workshop.
Summarized Problem Statement
There is a lack of shared understanding about how to access clinical data effectively and a less than desirable availability of timely and accurate data.
Summarized Problem Statement
There is a lack of human connection and communication in the request and fulfillment process and limited resources and support for the DMO.
🔍 Key Insights
3 Workshops, 1 Questionnaire, 1 Literature Review, 30 Semi-Structured Interviews, and Service Blueprinting workshop later with the following research goals guiding the direction of the project....
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Understand the desired future state of the relationship and collaboration between DMO (including analysts, self-service tools) and Physicians/QI.
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Understand the current data request and management request experience (processes, workflows, and tools) with focus on reducing inefficiencies, removing barriers to data access, and improving resource utilization and allocation.
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Understand how to create a shared sense of ownership and pride in data products between Physicians and data analysts.
... resulted in the following key insights
Need for data-driven decisions
Physicians feel they can't do their jobs due to limited data access. Actionable data that Physicians can use for decision-making is beneficial for improving patient care and preventative care efforts.
Data Access & Standardization
Access to data is impacted by prioritization of data requests, buy-in from leadership, policies, security, and scarcity of data analysts. Data standardization is important to build employee trust, improve data accessibility, ensure accuracy and consistency. More effective data sharing across healthcare organizations is needed.
Relationship between Physicians & Data Analysts
Physicians seek true partnership with the DMO and desire improved communication and greater transparency. Effective interdisciplinary collaboration between data analysts and Physicians is essential for producing actionable healthcare data and making informed decisions.
Data Request Process
Physicians find the use of ServiceNow to be an impersonal process with not enough assistance from data analysts. Physicians feel frustrated by the lack of transparency in the prioritization of data requests and emphasized the importance of usable data products and desire an iterative data requesting process.
Semi-structured interviews completed with 30 employees at 3 Partner hospitals.
17 insights, broken into 6 categories, were produced from the interviews and the literature review.
Participants work together to review and build the service blueprint
Solution
How Might We ...
HMW create a more personal data requesting process that feels like true partnership for effective interdisciplinary collaboration?
How Might We ...
HMW improve communication of status updates between data analysts and clinicians?
How Might We ...
HMW foster more accessible education and training for Physicians utilizing self-service tools?
How Might We ...
HMW create trust and transparency around the prioritization of data requests for Physicians?
Big Ideas - Ideation Session
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A consultation provided before a ticket is submitted that refines request and more focused asks.
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A liaison for every department that helps navigate process and available resources.
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A searchable database of existing and past data products to see all available data and "meta data" and support academic mission.
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A way to follow ticket status that is easily accessible for transparency.
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A call-in line that Physicians can use for support.
Participants share out their Big Ideas.
Participants review and vote on their Big Ideas.
💭 Reflection
Project Takeaways
This work resulted in the design and implementation of an analytics education program, which enabled staff, clinicians & leaders to self-serve data in Epic and helped our organization meet Epic Honor Roll requirements
The DMO and Medical Group Clinical Data Access leadership continue working with their teams to improve this service based on the research and insights developed from this project.