Efficient Staff, Improved Primary Care Using Epic

At Bon Secours Mercy Health in Ohio, rooming staff start primary care visits off right by reviewing patients’ preventive care needs and establishing a baseline of their health. With a standard, simplified workspace in Epic, Bon Secours Mercy Health’s staff can quickly hone in on the most important preventive care needs to improve outcomes: Since 2017, depression screenings have increased by 50%, breast cancer screenings have increased by 43%, and MyChart sign-ups have increased by 49%.

At the beginning of each visit, rooming staff use a short list of to-dos in the patient’s Epic chart to queue up next steps. For example, they pend preventive orders for a physician to sign and quickly reorder the patient’s prescriptions.

As staff finish up, a checklist in the patient’s chart provides a quick roundup of any outstanding screenings or tasks, such as signing the patient up for MyChart. Inline education is available for checklist items, such as the often-complex requirements for depression screening.

Giving staff an easy way to follow up on primary care tasks has led to great outcomes. “It’s like dominoes,” said Carrie Pollick, Bon Secours Mercy Health’s supervisor of ambulatory enhancements. “For example, lung cancer screening relies on smoking history that’s captured in a primary care visit. Once the data is there, we can identify patients for interventions, which leads to positive outcomes 5–10 steps down the line.”

Bon Secours Mercy Health received a HIMSS Davies Enterprise Award for their successes, including their primary care workspace design. Epic community members can read more about Bon Secours Mercy Health’s project in their Success at Seven newsletter.