Optimizing Clinical Processes Using the Electronic Health Record to Improve Patient Outcomes in Primary Care

Background: The EHR has been used to leverage clinical processes for the improvement of patient outcomes. The average users of EHR limit its uses to the minimum level required to complete the daily tasks needed, regardless of the existence of features within the EHR that are readily available to optimize clinical processes for efficiency and effectiveness. Objectives: The objective of this project was to improve the documentation in a nurse-managed health clinic related to the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) core criteria through enhancing the EHR to foster the quality improvement metrics and reporting. Methods: This was a quality improvement project to enhance the documentation in the EHR to increase the likelihood of achievement of PCMH core criteria to improve patient outcomes in a nurse-managed health canter. The pre-/post-implementation and comparison design methods were used for data management regarding the EHR acceptance and PCMH core criteria. Results: There was a significant improvement in the quality measures documentation after the introduction of enhanced features of the EHR. Conclusions: Central to the use of EHR to support PCMH is to provide an information infrastructure that enhances process optimization and improves patient experience and outcomes. Implications: Beyond performance improvement, as demonstrated in metric reporting, is the need for the clinic to analyze the information and tailor the results to provide evidence-based care to its population