OFMQ works with both Prospective Payment System (PPS) and Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) to encourage Systems Improvement and Organizational Culture Change (SIOC), by engaging senior hospital leadership in the use of Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE), barcoding, and/or telehealth systems.
In this project OFMQ consultants:
- Identify a core group of hospitals to work on the project
- Provide technical support to hospital leadership to help them develop the business case for the use of CPOE, barcoding, or telehealth systems
- Assist hospitals in the administration of a readiness/use tool at baseline and remeasurement
- Provide education about all aspects of CPOE, barcoding, or telehealth systems (i.e., infrastructure requirements, funding opportunities, day-to-day staffing requirements and associated costs, available applications, network partnership and successful examples) as part of each hospital’s implementation plan
- Provide tools and consultative services to assist hospitals with addressing problem areas in an effort to improve remeasurement outcomes
- Facilitate plan implementation
About the Project
How do CPOE and bar coding improve patient safety?
- CPOE reduces mistakes resulting from handwritten instructions.
- CPOE helps prevent dosage errors by limiting range of appropriate dosages.
- Bar coding reduces likelihood of dispensing the wrong drug or amount.
What are the financial benefits of CPOE and bar coding?
- Reduce medication errors and adverse drug events (ADE). Preventable ADEs increase a patient’s length of stay by an average of 2.2 days, with an estimated cost of $4,600 per event (Bates, JAMA, 1997).
- Enhance work efficiencies, nurse recruitment and retention.
- Improve medicine charge capture.
How can telehealth improve patient care?
- Expands accessibility to specialized health care to rural areas of Oklahoma.
- Allows real-time medical consultation to patients living in rural locations
What are the financial benefits of telehealth?
- Reduces costs for patients and their families (travel time and time away from work).
- Opportunity for hospitals to gain recognition for exceptional service which can help expand potential market share.
- Enables rural hospitals to provide more services such as continuing medical education (CME) to the medical staff.
Learn more about OFMQ's work in Oklahoma's rural and critical access hospitals.
Access information, tools and resources on MedQIC, the national quality improvement web site.
Contact: Lisa Wynn, Quality Improvement Specialist, at 405.840.2891 or E-mail.