HealthLeaders Magazine Launches November Issue.

MARBLEHEAD, Mass. -- HealthLeaders Magazine, a monthly publication on the issues and trends shaping the healthcare business today, released its November issue last week.

http://www.healthleadersmedia.com

BRINGING ORDER TO CPOE 

10 Make or Break Steps (and five Myths)

There are only two kinds of hospitals: Those that are implementing computerized physician order entry and those that will be. In the November issue of HealthLeaders magazine, Technology Editor Gary Baldwin finds 10 common strategies that can make or break a CPOE implementation, and explores five common myths and misconceptions about the technology.

Any CPOE project involves a mix of technology obstacles that must be hurdled, but the most complex issues invariably come with getting the staff--particularly the physicians--to use the technology to its maximum benefit. HealthLeaders asked the leaders at seven leading hospitals -- Evanston Northwestern Healthcare, Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Ohio State University Medical Center, Duke University Health System, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of Pennsylvania Health System - to share their CPOE secrets.

"Physicians have grown very comfortable scribbling out illegible, incomplete and error prone orders," says Brian Jacobs, M.D., director of technology and patient safety at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, now in its third year of electronic order entry. "And nurses and pharmacists have been good at gluing their orders together. For decades, they have been the mainstay of preventing errors from reaching the patients. With CPOE, you are asking physicians to be the front line person to create a complete, legible order. It's a huge cultural change."

There is no reason to fall into the common CPOE traps if you follow the 10 lessons, including:

All hands on ship

If CPOE masters agree on one strategy, it's this. To succeed, a CPOE implementation must be the top priority of the healthcare organization.

Recognize the politics

CPOE masters contend their implementations are as much political science as computer science. Physicians may be celebrated for fierce independence, but they also understand pecking orders and hierarchies. Having a chief medical information officer attuned to the local power matrix can smooth the transition to CPOE.

The overall key to winning the CPOE game is prudent planning, and to keep the goal in mind, CPOE experts say. "The point is to help physicians make clinical decisions," says Michael Russell, M.D., associate CIO at Duke University Health System. "Not turn them into clerks."

Also in the November issue of HealthLeaders:

Can hospitals face the fear that their prices will become transparent?

While consumers and some regulators push for more disclosure of the prices hospitals charge for services, some in the industry continue to maintain that the information is not as useful as the public might think.

Managing the disruptive patient

One hospital uses a new position in the nursing staff to manage the disorder that can come when a patient is difficult to manage.

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ABOUT US

HealthLeaders Magazine is the only publication created exclusively for senior-level executives across the spectrum of care. Each monthly issue, reaching over 40,000 executives, delivers articles covering the latest success stories and failures in market strategy, finance, technology, policy, culture and innovation.