When UConn Health unveils HealthONE in two months, it will be a modern electronic health record system standing not alone, but at the center of a hub of new technology, new roles, new services, and new workflows designed to work together to make the health care experience better for both provider and patient.

Giselle Funchion, assistant director of clinical informatics, breaks it down:

• OneSign (Imprivata) badge-tap sign-in: “It’s our secure and fast way for our providers to use their badge to access patient records, sort of like a fast lane or fast pass,” Funchion says.
• Dragon dictation, already in place in outpatient areas, expanding to include inpatient areas: “We are upgrading our dictation system to integrate with the cloud, which will allow for faster transcription throughout the house.”
• Intellispace obstetrics monitoring for labor and delivery patients: “That will then feed into HealthONE as well for both the monitoring and documentation of those patients.”
• GI Provation procedural documentation system: “We already have gone live with this. All of this procedural information will feed downward into HealthONE.”
• Scribes to facilitate provider documentation and entry into the system: “Over the last 6 months we have introduced scribes on the outpatient side. This new role has helped our physicians move patients along more efficiently with timelier completion of their charts. While the scribes do not enter orders or prescriptions, they enter the documentation based on what the provider’s assessing. This allows the providers to be truly present and in the moment with the patient, hearing and understanding their concerns, while the scribe is taking care of that documentation piece.”
• Epilepsy Monitoring Unit: “We also already have gone live with the EMU, located on the first floor of the University Tower within the intensive care unit. This was a collaboration with our outpatient neurology practice bringing patients in house for controlled seizure monitoring for those patients where traditional regimens might have been unsuccessful.”
• Intake and Change Control to establish a methodical and stringent process for implementing improvements both before and after go-live. “With such a large system as HealthONE and all of these ancillary systems, the change control process will start from the ONErequest (as we’re saying HealthONE), and there’ll be one click for the end user so they can report an issue or request a change. There will be a tightly controlled method to which we prioritize and make those changes to ensure the intended change is made and items aren’t broken along the way.”

And just as the electronic medical record is just one—albeit major—component of HealthONE, the April 28 go-live date is just one—albeit major—milestone in HealthONE’s implementation.

“I don’t see it as the finish line,” Funchion says. Once you reach go-live, you’re now in an optimization phase. It’s the start of a new beginning… many new beginnings. It’s going to need lots of nourishment, lots of maintenance for its lifetime.”

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

Five months ahead of the debut of UConn Health’s new electronic medical record system, UConn HealthONE, comes a shift in focus to the complicated world of health care reimbursement.

About 60 HealthONE analysts and subject matter experts are leading the effort known as “parallel revenue cycle testing,” which started this week and runs through early March.

“This is a key driver of our ensuring reimbursement,” says UConn Health’s Carolyn Orrell, who’s directing the access and revenue cycle portion of HealthONE. “It’s the next validation of what we built in the system, such as the charges generated from the tests, procedures, and supplies used to provide patient care that will be on the bill/claim sent to various payers.”

This testing phase involves scenarios created in Epic, the software at the heart of HealthONE, designed to measure the effectiveness how the system handles charges, claims, and coding to optimize how UConn Health collects reimbursements.

“This is where we push further and test how scheduling, access, coding, clinical operations, billing and our charge master all integrate with the final goal of getting a claim designed with the right charges and ultimately paid,” says UConn Health Chief Financial Officer Jeff Geoghegan. “This is an important test for the revenue cycle and will determine how well our foundation work has been designed.”

Many of the scripts will be based on services, both inpatient and outpatient, that translate into claims that are considered high frequency, high dollar, complicated, or some combination of those characteristics.

“It will get us to the point that we’ll have confidence that when the claim goes to the payer that we are going to get paid correctly,” Orrell says.

The plan is to run a half dozen scripts each week that represent professional (physician)-based claims and hospital-based claims. Those that don’t pass would be corrected and retested.

“We are shadowing claims that we generate from our current systems to make sure all our Epic processes have the same output, so we can bill correctly and get payment back,” Orrell says. “This will give us opportunities to identify what’s working and what needs to be fixed. It also will help ensure that we won’t be missing out on claims we’re collecting on now.”

The parallel revenue cycle testing will take place on the fourth floor of the Connecticut Tower, a testing area converted from an old John Dempsey Hospital patient floor.

“Success will be when every one of these scenarios is verified to meet our criteria so when claims go out they will look right,” Orrell says. “With minimal delays and accurate data on a claim, we’ll be able to receive payment in a timely fashion.”

This is the last part of the testing phase, which is followed by the training phase on the HealthONE timeline for the April 28, 2018, go-live date.

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

The hypothetical story of a marathon runner named Honey Bewell will illustrate the different processes of a patient encounter using UConn HealthONE, the new electronic medical record system UConn Health is introducing in the spring.

The role-play scenario, titled “Marathon Misadventures,” is the main event that precedes a series of breakout sessions on Thursday, Nov. 9, collectively known as the Workflow Walkthrough.

In the light-hearted portrayal, happening in the Massey Auditorium at 9:15 a.m. and then again at noon, Bewell shows up at the UConn Health Emergency Department complaining of abdominal pain after completing the Hartford Marathon. Her medical history already is in HealthONE and immediately available to the triage nurse. Subsequent providers can easily review a consolidated patient history as well as the new details from this visit.

“It’s meant to be fun. It’s silly on purpose,” says Stephanie Vospette, a consultant on the HealthONE project. “We’re portraying what a patient might experience here at UConn Health, and we encourage people to come and see it.”

The intended audience includes management team members, physicians, nurses, technicians, subject matter experts, and various HealthONE team leaders.

“This is a consolidated demonstration of Epic that reflects what we’re building for UConn Health,” Vospette says. “It’s really an opportunity to see what work’s been done with HealthONE, a high-level view offering another look at the system, with the intention of increasing engagement and even generating some excitement.”

Epic is the vendor providing the software platform on which UConn HealthONE will run.

“Marathon Misadventures” also will demonstrate the involvement of HealthONE throughout different phases of care, including a follow-up visit. The breakout sessions, which include smaller-group demonstrations and open houses, start at noon.

“The team is really excited to be showing the UConn Health version of Epic to those who will actually use the system,” says Christopher Carroll, the HealthONE project’s director of ancillary applications.

To date, all of the HealthONE module teams have been working with their specific departments, but the role-play sessions show the integrated solution and data sharing that will be live on April 28.

Anyone who has the opportunity to attend and wants to learn more about how UConn HealthONE will work—or what becomes of Honey Bewell—is welcome to attend.

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