Last year Epic came on site to Mt. Washington for an immersion visit to help the Office of Population Health (OPH) better leverage untapped Epic functionality. The Epic consultants identified several opportunities. Episodes and Care Plans sat at the top of their list. Episodes are collections of encounters or admissions with a common purpose. For example, an episode might link all prenatal visits for a pregnancy, a series of physical therapy appointments for an injury, or the consultation, preoperative care, surgery, and postoperative care associated with a transplant. Care plans are maps to the treatment patients receive. Nurses, therapists, and other ancillary staff involved in treatment share information on the care plan to keep it up to date with the patient’s current condition. A care plan allows any clinician to learn the problems, goals, and interventions that are the focus of care for a patient, and then to coordinate their own care appropriately.
The OPH team and Health IT Epic Ambulatory team worked through the design, testing, training, and implementation of Episodes and Care Plans. These teams worked closely with clinical leaders, staff, Epic consultants, training staff, and project managers to complete this project. These modules went live in Epic over the summer, and continuous improvements are occurring based on staff’s feedback.
