Tip: Advance CDI’s cause through technology

Those who’ve been in CDI long enough remember the days of colored paper queries slipped into charts. Often, those queries would get lost in the literal shuffle, or simply go unanswered and ignored with no concrete way of tracking the query.

Then, electronic health records (EHR) came on the scene, changing the CDI process for nearly everyone.

“Simply put, the advent of EHRs and e-queries changed how CDI specialists work—and the days of misplaced paper queries and incoherent penmanship are all but gone,” according to a special report out from ACDIS and HealthLeaders Media, in partnership with Optum360, “Leveraging technology to advance CDI efforts.”

Like all changes, EHR comes with rewards and challenges. CDI programs gain the flexibility and supportive data to meet the needs of the healthcare systems they serve. All while increasing productivity.

“With any new system, issues are going to have to be addressed,” Kathy McDiarmid, RN, CDI specialist at Beverly Hospital, a member of the Lahey Health System in Massachusetts, told the CDI Journal in December.

“There will be little things that physicians forget,” she says. Yet armed with intimate knowledge of the programs chosen, CDI staff can help physicians navigate the EHR and provide real-time assistance once the programs are in use, says Colleen Stukenberg, RN, MSN, CMSRN, CCDS,director of resource management at FHN in Freeport, Illinois, in a 2016 CDI Week Q&A for ACDIS.

In order to fully leverage the new technology, according to the report, CDI specialists need to understand the technology first. This knowledge gives them another platform from which to reach out to physicians. The CDI team can be a resource and help ease the transition to a new system for the physician.

To learn more about leveraging your EHR system to improve physician engagement and productivity, read the entire report by clicking here.