DESIGN OF A NEW PATIENT INTAKE SYSTEM AT THE KENNEDY KRIEGER INSTITUTE

Olusesan MakindeMentor – Dr Paul Law – Director of Medical Informatics at KKI and Assistant Professor in Pediatrics JHU.

MOTIVATION/ PROJECT NEED

The leadership of the Kennedy Kreiger Institute (KKI) recently had a strategic planning meeting where the importance of developing a more efficient and institution-wide acceptable intake system for new patients was given a high priority. It is hoped that this system will help in improving the quality of care and increase cross department comparison of indices and collaborative research.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

1. Develop a uniform patient intake system for the entire Kennedy Krieger Institute (Non-functional)

2. Improve the completion rate of intake forms by parents and/ or guardians (Non-functional)

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

3. Make patient background history available to physicians and other clinical personnel ahead of visit (Functional)

4. Archive data electronically and in a format where it is easy to use for research and decision making (Functional)

METHODS

We identified the major components of the project and we subsequently broke each one down to its basic elements that needed to be fulfilled to achieve that objective.

METHODS

In addition, we formed three task teams to carry out the various activities. The teams are:The Core Informatics TeamThe Quality Improvement Team

The Information System team

WORK/ TASK BREAKDOWN

Develop a uniformly acceptable data collection tool for the entire Kennedy Krieger Institute

Develop a new workflow for the implementation of the system

Choose an appropriate electronic survey platform for use as a backbone to build the intake system

Liaise with the Information Systems unit of KKI to build and deploy the system.

WORK/ TASK BREAKDOWN

Automate reminders to parents/ guardian at specific intervals with specific messages.

Connect the intake system or summary report to the electronic medical record

Field-Test the systemCertify that the system meets the

specifications

WORKFLOW

MAJOR ISSUE IDENTIFIED

Email address collected at first contact: This was a very important feature to succeed on this project

ISSUES CONTINUED

We realized the email addresses were not being collected universally as we had thought thereby jeopardizing the success of the project.

We also found that email addresses were being collected in multiple locations in the EMR (AS-400 database.) so we suggested a stricter SOP that detailed the location where the email address should be archived.

SELECTION OF A BACKBONECOMPARISON OF LIME SURVEY, KWIK SURVEY AND ZOOMERANG

Area of Comparison Lime Survey Kwik Survey Zoomerang

Survey Customization Highly Customizable Customizable Background Customizable

Logic/ Branching/ Custom Order Highly Customizable Skip and branch logic possible Skip and branch logic possible

Price

0 organizational charge but considerable investment in design and customization

$0 organizational charge but will need to be customized

599/ year but also needs to be customized. Non-profit 449/ yr

Number of SurveysUnlimited number of surveys or questions

Unlimited number of surveys and questions Unlimited questions

Number of Responses Unlimited Unlimited number of responses Unlimited responses

Data Storage Online or In-house Online or in-house OnlineGraphing/ Data export capabilities

Basic statistical and graphical analysis Live analysis, graphics not stated

Results viewable in graphical format

Support Forums, live chat, Help and Docs, Paid Support with response in 2 hours Free live phone support

Exportable to CSV, PSV, SPSS, R, queXML, EXCEL, PDF Spreadsheet

Excel, PDF, Power-point, CSV, Excel, Word,

Branding with logo/ Customization Yes Yes YesSaving test answers such as very important as a numerical number Not stated Not stated Not stated

LIMESURVEY WEBSITE AND DEMO

http://parentsurvey.limequery.com/24819/lang-en

LESSONS LEARNED

Organizational priority and executive buy-in is needed for the execution and success of any project. The commitment by the leadership of KKI set the ball rolling on this project and led to accomplishments that have been thought over but difficult to execute.

LESSONS LEARNED

Understanding terminologies above and below the Informatics Stack line helped me significantly in carrying out the tasks of this project.

Planning and proper documentation can help the easy transition of a project between 2 succeeding project managers.

THE CORE INFORMATICS TEAM

APPRECIATION

Dr Paul Law, the Director of Medical Informatics at KKI for his patience and guidance while I worked on this project. Other team members Luther Kalb, Kate Foster, Melanie and others who contributed in one way or the other to the project.

My appreciation also goes to Dr Harold Lehmann, Ms Kersti Winny and Ms LaShawn Johnson-Thomas for their guidance and support all through the year.

THANK YOU FOR

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