Electronic Medical Record- EPIC & queries

Hi, I have looked at all the archived chats re: electronic medical records and have some questions relative to the query process being used by those who have the EPIC system. I've tried to be proactive and stay out in front of this however, the biggest concern has been getting the physicians to go live which is important. This process is now being addressed, the physicians are live.

Currently our queries are not part of the medical record (coding queries are-but they are separate from CDI). I am interested in a process for queries NOT part of the record. We are using inter- office e-mail to send queries until a permanent process is developed.

The EPIC sticky notes don't alert the physicians to open them and are automatically removes after 24 hours we are told. Some of our physicians have told us they don't read inter office e-mails. We fear text paging will become irritating to them. I know some of you out there probably have a great system in place and I would love to hear of your process.

If you use EPIC, would you be willing to share your process?

Many thanks,
Debbie Smith RN-CDIS

Comments

  • edited May 2016
    Debbie Smith,
    I am at OHSU in Portland and we have been on Epic for 2 years. We began our query process by using the "sticky note" as this resembled a "paper query" in the chart. The way our system was set up, the sticky note appeared in the nursing Kardex and in the order manager tab as Interdisciplinary communication to physician. Until someone erased the sticky note it remained in those 2 places until discharge when it was archived. As a back-up /secondary method of communicating, we also wrote queries to individual providers using the in-basket function which is much like email. It is not really an option for them not to open their in-basket messages as that is where all the order cosigning and other messages come to them regarding patients. Feel free to give us a call, there are two of us who can answer your questions. If we can get one of our IT people to help us, we could probably send you some screen shots of what I am talking about.
    Look forward to hearing from you.

    Roberta Fosterman RN
    Clinical Documentation Specialist
    Mail Code OP17A
    Phone 503-418-4024
    Fax 503-494-8439
    fosterma@ohsu.edu




  • edited May 2016
    Roberta,

    Thank you so much for the prompt response, I really posted this at the close of the day Friday and was surprised at the quick response. I knew the were some seasoned EPIC users out there. This is very helpful and I appreciate the option of contacting you. Prehaps I will do that.

    Again, many thanks,

    Debbie Smith RN-CDIS
    214-645-5217









  • edited May 2016
    I have the same problem only with using the Meditech system. Does anyone have any solutions using Meditech?

    Thank you,
    Lisa Taylor,RN


  • edited May 2016
    Lisa,

    Are you saying you use Meditech to query the physician in? We also use Meditech - I find it very non-user friendly. We are hybrid as far as medical records go so I have not had the pleasure of trying to query a physician using Meditech.


    Charlene


  • edited May 2016
    I have not been able to query the physicians using Meditech which is a major problem. We still have a physical chart but the physicians do everything in the computer (ie: their orders, progress notes, reviewing documentation from ancillary services, etc.). I am having a hard time coming up with a way of querying them. Supposedly there is some type of note that can be sent to the physicians that nursing, and they say myself, will be able to use but they have been working on it for a year and it isn't live yet.

    Lisa


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