SUCCESS STORY
Improved Adherence to Hep-C Screening Guidelines
An alert deployed by an Academic Medical Center has shown positive results in increasing screenings for patients who are at risk for the hepatitis C virus (HCV).
Overview:
- A cross-functional team leveraged Phrase Health to assess an HCV interruptive alert designed to improve screenings
- The Medical Center identified nurses who weren’t acting on the alert, provided education to help improve their performance, and ultimately drove more screenings
PROBLEM
Pennsylvania introduced the Hepatitis C Screening Act to help ensure patients at risk of HCV were being offered tests. The Medical Center launched a program in response to these guidelines leveraging alerts to drive screenings across different hospitals and care settings. They initially experienced varying degrees of success and didn’t fully understand why.
APPROACH
A cross-functional team of clinicians, IT analysts, and administration collaborated on the optimization of these alerts with a specific focus on performance within the emergency department.
The team explored the data using Phrase Health to search for patterns related to alert performance. Phrase enabled the team to investigate when the alert fired, which nurse saw it, and what was the action he or she took. This allowed the Medical Center to see the range in success of ordering screenings for their ED nurses.
RESULT
The team used Phrase to help determine that the alert successfully encouraged nurses to order screenings for at-risk patients. On average, providers were able to screen 20 patients per day which linked 50 HCV positive patients per month to care. In addition to better HCV screening and access to care, this intervention is estimated to have a net positive financial impact for the Medical Center due to treatment and prescription fills.
