Author: Chris DeFrancesco

HealthONE Fairs Explain ‘Patient Movement’

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Join us for a preview of HealthONE before go-live at one of the upcoming HealthONE fairs, where experts will show the capabilities of HealthONE applications, offer tips and tricks, and answer your questions as they relate to patient movement.

UConn John Dempsey Hospital Fair
Wednesday, April 18, 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Emergency Department Conference Room
Through this event you have the opportunity to attend a brief demo of a patient entering the ED, completing radiology tests, moving to the OR for a surgical intervention, through the road to recovery and released from the hospital.  You will be able to ask HealthONE trainers and analysts application-specific questions.

Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center Fair
Tuesday, April 24, 1 to 5 p.m.
Outpatient Pavilion, eighth floor large conference room
Through this event you have the opportunity to attend a brief demo of a patient checking into the Cancer Center, releasing of a treatment plan, collecting labs, documentation, closing the encounter and finally checking the patient out.  You will be able to ask HealthONE trainers and analysts application-specific questions.

Outpatient Pavilion Fair
Wednesday, April 25, 8 a.m. to noon
Eighth floor large conference room
Through this event you have the opportunity to attend a brief demo of a patient checking into an outpatient clinic, a nurse or MA obtaining/documenting vitals, med reconciliation, etc., provider documentation, follow up instructions and then patient check out. You will be able to ask HealthONE trainers and analysts application-specific questions.

For more information, email healthonetrainingregistration@uchc.edu.

—HealthONE training team

Watch for additional HealthONE updates in Lifeline, in the Pulse, at uconnhealthexpress.uchc.edu/HealthONE, and now on Twitter @UConnHealthONE.

Memo: Completing Charts Prior to April 28th HealthONE Go-Live

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TO: All UConn Health Providers who bill for services
(Including Attendings, Residents/Fellows, Advanced Care Practitioners, Audiologists, Speech Pathologists, Nutritionists)
FROM: Dirk Stanley, MD (Chief Medical Information Officer)
Richard Simon, MD (UConn Chief of Staff)
Denis LaFreniere, MD (UMG Medical Director)
Scott Allen, MD (JDH Medical Director, Quality Programs)
DATE: 4/11/2018
RE: Completing charts prior to April 28th HealthONE Go-Live

Attention all UConn Health Providers who bill for services,

Prior to our HealthONE go-live on April 28, for patient safety and billing purposes, it is crucial that all clinical staff to complete and sign all clinical documentation (paper, electronic, or dictated/transcribed notes) by the following dates:

  1. FOR ALL INPATIENT, ED, and OUTPATIENT (AMBULATORY) CARE PRIOR TO APRIL 23
    All outstanding clinical documentation must be completed and signed by 7:00pm on April 25, 2018.
  2. FOR ALL INPATIENT, ED, and OUTPATIENT (AMBULATORY) CARE BETWEEN APRIL 23 to APRIL 28
    All outstanding clinical documentation must be completed and signed by 7:00pm on May 4, 2018.

Completing and signing all clinical documentation by these dates will help us bill on time and help improve the data available in HealthONE at go-live on Saturday, April 28.

Any notes that are not completed and signed by these dates may not be billed on-time, and could potentially contribute to delays in patient care.

For more information, please visit the new HealthONE Intranet Site at:

http://uconnhealthexpress.uchc.edu/healthone

… or email Dirk Stanley ( stanley@uchc.edu ) for more information.

Thank you,

Dirk Stanley, MD MPH
Richard Simon, MD
Denis LaFreniere, MD
Scott Allen, MD

HealthONE Soft Go-live | Frequently Asked Questions

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UConn HealthONE logo 270x123Following the appointment conversion weekend from Friday, April 6 – Sunday, April 8, 2018, UConn Health will go live with HealthONE’s scheduling application, Cadence, on Monday, April 9, 2018. The soft go-live of HealthONE’s scheduling application will impact end users who have a scheduling job function.

HealthONE Training Requirements

I have outstanding HealthONE training that I have not completed. Will I have access to the system at go-live?

No training. No access. No kidding. Staff who have a scheduling job function should complete their required HealthONE training by Friday, April 6, 2018. If you will not complete training by this date, please contact healthonetrainingregistration@uchc.edu.

Scheduling in HealthONE

How will staff schedule appointments with a service date that occurs on or after Saturday, April 28, 2018?

All appointments including cancellations, new and rescheduled appointments with a service date of Saturday, April 28, 2018, or beyond will be scheduled in HealthONE.

How will staff schedule appointments with service dates prior to go-live?

All appointments (cancelled, new and reschedule) with service dates prior to Saturday, April 28, 2018, will be scheduled in IDX.

Soft Go-live ‘At-the-elbow’ Support

Will there be support for staff during the soft launch?

Yes; go-live support will be provided by at-the-elbow (ATE) resources. ATE support will continue through go-live on Saturday, April 28, 2018, and will be supplemented with support from super users during go-live.

How can I identify an at-the-elbow (ATE) support person during the soft launch?

ATE support will wear black vests during the soft go-live and through the go-live. This will ensure that end users are able to easily identify resources.

Reporting Issues During Soft Go-live

How can I report a build/workflow issue during soft go-live?

Staff will be able to submit tickets for build/workflow issues through an ATE support person or by dialing 4400 option 1.

What are the hours of the command center during the soft go-live?

During soft go-live, the command center will be open Monday – Friday from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm to assist end users.

What information should I include when submitting a ticket?

  • Name of affected user
  • Contact information for call back (please provide a cell phone, if possible)
  • Computer name
  • The date/time the end user experienced the issue
  • Detailed description of the issue
  • Patient name, MRN and patient DOB, if applicable to the issue

General Issues and Communications

If I am unable to perform a task in HealthONE and I need to modify my scheduling template, who should I reach out to for assistance?

All template related issues should be escalated to your manager. Once escalated, your manager will determine if your template needs to be revised in order to perform your job function.

I printed a document in HealthONE, but the document did not print in my preferred location.

Beginning on Monday, April 9, documents and labels printed within HealthONE will print to the printer located nearest to the end user. If you are experiencing issues related to printing, please verify that you are logged into the correct location in HealthONE. For additional issues related to printing, please direct your questions to an ATE or call the command center.

Where can I check for updates regarding the soft go-live?

All soft go-live communications will be posted on http://uconnhealthexpress.uchc.edu/. Please bookmark this page on your computer.

HealthONE: Enabling ‘Care Everywhere’

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UConn HealthONE logo 270x123Care Everywhere, the interoperability application within Epic (which powers UConn HealthONE), can be used to exchange patient data with other health care institutions, including Hartford Healthcare, St. Francis and Connecticut Children’s Medical Center.

Today, organizations are using Care Everywhere to exchange more than 1.25 million patient records daily with other health care providers and government agencies such as the Department of Veteran Affairs, the Social Security Administration, and the Department of Defense. Information can be exchanged directly between standards-compliant EHR systems or with the help of Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) and Health Information Service Providers (HISPs).

Care Everywhere helps ensure that clinicians have the information they need to treat patients, both for unplanned transitions of care, such as visits to the emergency department, and planned transitions of care, such as referrals.

After the patient’s information goes into HealthONE, physicians can review it and reconcile discrete allergies, medications, problems, and immunizations in Care Everywhere documents with information in the patient’s local Epic chart. Reconciled data becomes a permanent part of the patient’s chart and is used to drive clinical decision support.

—From Epic UserWeb

Watch for additional HealthONE updates in Lifeline, in the Pulse, at uconnhealthexpress.uchc.edu/HealthONE, and now on Twitter @UConnHealthONE.

Spotlight on Services: Colon Cancer Prevention Program

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UConn Health started its Colon Cancer Prevention Program a decade ago. Dr. Joel Levine, one of the co-founders, describes how what started as a novel approach to the disease is becoming a mainstream concept.

Dr. Joel Levine
Dr. Joel Levine is a co-founding director of the UConn Health Colon Cancer Prevention Program. (Photo by Janine Gelineau)

What makes the Colon Cancer Prevention Program successful?

The idea of prevention is what’s novel. There aren’t any other prevention programs that do what we do. If you Google “colon cancer prevention program,” we come out as the top listed patient centered resource.

Our process is very longitudinal. It’s not a one and done. We follow more than 6,000 people who return, at least annually, for both the latest information and for modulating their level of risk. Lowering risk is what we, the patient and Program, do. We are always learning how to do that more effectively. Indeed, we have not seen a colon cancer develop in someone who has been in the Program in about eight years. Put another way, if you come to us without colon cancer, we start by identifying risk and, then, follow you accordingly. If we reduce whatever risk level you have, we have not had a patient develop colon cancer on our watch.

The exceptions, so important to us, are patients who, on first visit, we find have colon cancer. Many patients are referred because of a positive FIT test (fecal immunochemical test). We introduced the quantitative FIT test to UConn Health and continue to study the test, over time, as an early marker for polyps or cancer. We work with the wonderful genetics group to identify those patients and families with inherited risk. Very few patients who have colon cancer in the family have actual inheritable risk (3 percent) but they are important to identify. These patients are followed closely, expecting them to develop colon cancer as a risk of their disease. We cannot as of yet prevent it in those inherited risk families, but we still can take steps to reduce risk by about half.

Prevention chose our program to feature in its “Guide to Preventing Disease” in its April issue. What do you see as the implications of that?

This is one of the largest magazine readerships in the world. The increasing recognition of a program dedicated to prevention is encouraging. Therefore we are at the tip of that spear and grateful to the Neag Comprehensive Cancer Center for supporting us from the outset.

We have a program whose purpose is to think about the disease. We are migrating from just doing colonoscopy, which is still important, to what do you do before and after the colonoscopy—how you define risk and  how you then modulate the risk—and that’s prevention. In recent conversations with Dr. Dorado Brooks, who leads the colon cancer division of the national American Cancer Society, we plan to forward this more broad-based and lifelong strategy to lower the frequency and mortality of this disease. The evidence is emerging and our approach that combines the latest in scientific thought to patient care is shaping how we see the problem and solution.

What’s happening on the academic side?

We are publishing and hoping to influence thought. I just co-wrote an editorial for a leading GI journal with Dr. Joseph Anderson [former UConn Health colleague, now at Dartmouth] in which we discuss a particular type of colon cancer pathway. The emphasis is on how long it takes for that pathway to go from one level of risk to another. Young people can have polyps in that pathway but do not commonly develop colon cancer; it is only when they are much older do you see the colon cancers appear, so you have a long period of time in which the disease evolves. There are even specific risks, because this pathway involves DNA methylation, a biologic process that can silence key genes. This occurs progressively as you get older but can be increased cigarette smoking, a behavior we really fuss about. Dr. Anderson’s study of smoking risk, begun here, is very well recognized and regarded.

How has the approach to mitigating colon cancer prevention evolved over the program’s 10 years?

It’s really colonoscopy-plus, with super-sensitive blood stool testing, better understanding of the colon’s microbiome, and an ever-growing knowledge of modifiable risk factors. In this regard, Dr. Ethan Bortniker, who directs new approaches in clinical research, studies how other lifestyle factors (cardiovascular health, metabolic fat in the liver) influence colon polyps and cancer. Our patients know this and are proactive participants in their own well-being. They fastidiously stick with the program.

Overall the colon cancer attack rate is still low. If you have a 5 percent attack rate in a disease, your anxiety says, “Show me I don’t have the disease.” We hope to focus more on those who are likely the 5 percent. Early prediction of biologic and then clinical risk is the name of the game. Dr. Dan Rosenberg, who is the director of our basic research, is a leading authority and invaluable to our clinical approach. We hope to be able to understand the biology of early cancer risk and keep it from becoming a clinical reality. So far, we are making progress.

HealthONE: What Do We Mean by ‘Activation’?

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During the last six to nine months, the HealthONE team has been concentrating on the build and testing of the HealthONE system. In January, the HealthONE training program for credentialed trainers, super users and UConn Health staff got underway.

Behind the scenes a small group of HealthONE CORe Team (Clinical Operational Readiness) members, along with consultant partners from CSI Healthcare IT, have been working on a HealthONE “activation” plan. Sometimes called a “go-live” plan, it includes four main pillars:

  • TDR (Technical Dress Rehearsal): Testing of the functionality of every work station that will use HealthONE, including inpatient, outpatient, and off-campus locations. The goal is to ensure compatibility and proper execution of printers, barcode scanners, badge readers, and other devices.
  • Cutover: A very detailed and technical process with hundreds of steps to turn on HealthONE, connect other IT systems to Epic, activate end user security accounts, etc.
  • ATE (“At the Elbow”): Planning and coordination of several hundred support staff from Epic and external contractors
  • Command Center Support: Up to 200 go-live support staff in three or four strategic areas manning help desk phones and working/resolving issues.

Watch for additional HealthONE updates in Lifeline, in the Pulse, at uconnhealthexpress.uchc.edu/HealthONE, and now on Twitter @UConnHealthONE.

HealthONE Rolling out Single Sign On

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Imprivata Reader
Users will be able to log in to HealthONE by tapping their badge and entering a password that enables them to tap in and out for four hours and 15 minutes without having to provide a password again. (Image provided by Imprivata)

(Updated April 9)

With “OneSign”–commonly referred to as “Single Sign On”–successfully deployed on Floors 1 through 6 of the Outpatient Pavilion, the UConn HealthONE team is moving ahead with deployment of this badge-tap technology for the rest of the campus and community locations.

UConn HealthONE is the new electronic health record system UConn Health is debuting in one month. Single Sign On enables physicians, nurses, and other providers to quickly and securely access patient records simply by tapping their badge and entering a password. Single Sign On will allow users to tap in and out for four hours and 15 minutes without having to provide a password again.

Additional information from IT:

  • Please leave your computer on at night to receive critical HealthONE updates, including Single Sign On.
  • If your badge is not enrolled and/or you are having difficulty enrolling your badge after deployment, you can always log onto the PC with your normal network ID and password.
  • IT staff will be coordinating deployments with the managers of each area and will be providing managers with Single Sign On cheat sheets to be distributed to their staff prior to enrollment. All documentation for Single Sign On can also be found in the UConn Health Applications folder located on the desktop of each PC.
  • The entire University Tower is scheduled for deployment Monday, April 16.
  • All areas, with the exception of the Emergency Department and Farmington Surgery Center will be deployed prior to April 28. The Emergency Department and Farmington Surgery Center will go live on April 28 with the rest of HealthONE.
  • Providers who prescribe controlled substances will be able to use the Imprivata ID feature for ePrescribe feature once HealthONE is live on April 28.

Watch for additional HealthONE updates in Lifeline, in the Pulse, at uconnhealthexpress.uchc.edu/HealthONE, and now on Twitter @UConnHealthONE.

Q&A Corner: Dr. Suzanne Doyon, Medical Director, Poison Control

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Dr. Suzanne Doyon, medical director, Connecticut Poison Control Center (Photo by Tina Encarnacion)

National Poison Prevention Week is March 18-24. Dr. Suzanne Doyon, who joined UConn Health as the medical director of the Connecticut Poison Control Center in November, shares her expertise as a medical toxicologist.

What’s trending in toxicology?

The teenager laundry pod challenge occupied the airwaves in January. Local media helped us get the word out about this trend and the Connecticut Poison Control Center was featured in many stories. Carbon monoxide poisonings have kept us busy recently following the nor’easters and bomb cyclones.

What are the most avoidable poison hazards?

Unsecured household products and unsecured medications are still the number one avoidable poison hazard in the home. Other sources of calls are medication errors in the elderly, especially if they do not use pill dispensers. As a result, the Connecticut Poison Control Center supports child-resistant packaging and poison prevention practices and the use of pill dispensers by the elderly.

What’s most asked about on calls to the poison control center hotline?

The most common types of call remain unsupervised ingestions in children, usually involving personal care products (shampoos, creams, etc.) or household products (detergents, cleaners, etc.)

What makes the Connecticut Poison Control Center successful in its mission?

The Connecticut Poison Control Center is staffed 24/7 by nurses and pharmacists with extensive training and knowledge of poisons and poisonings. Collectively, the poison specialists have over 100 years of experience in poisonings. The person answering the phone is an expert. The hotline is a service is free to the caller.

What brought you to UConn Health?

I am a medical toxicologist interested in public health, especially opioid use disorder. My previous position was assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and prior to that I was medical director of the Maryland Poison Control Center. I missed doing poison center work. The position of medical director of the Connecticut Poison Control Center opened up and the rest is history.

The Poison Control Center Hotline is 800.222.1222, offering free and confidential information around the clock.