Optimized Care through Easy-to-Consult Protocols
We need to have our integrated clinical protocols available at physicians mobile or website. Any company or home developed software that we could use to personalize our protocolos and made them available easily to all?
We are developing integrated clinical protocols to all Disease Reference Centers in our Cancer Center. To build these integrated protocols we are using a clever mind-manager software that speeds up a lot the translation of whatever is on NCCN or other guidelines + Physicians mind/local culture into a more structured protocol. 20+ specialties togheter in each disease center putting all the best knowledge available into just one institutional protocol from prevention to diagnosis to treatment to rehabilition to suveillance to end of life. Well done! Challenges now are to connect this clinical protocols to operational routines, clinical outcomes and cost. However, the same software is not adequate when is time to search for a situation in the protocol. Even the NCCN guidelines are suboptimal because they come in pdf format. We would like to have a more live app to search for protocol particularities that could help residents or any other physician to consult what is the best option given a scenario of patient age, cancer type, disease stage and co-morbidities, for example. I need to find a open platform where we could personalize the contents for our institution. Do you know any company or start up working on it?
We are currently looking into the possibility of working with Awell health (https://awellhealth.com). Please have a look at the website and if interested let me know. I can get you in touch with their ceo.
I am really interested in discussing this with you during the next module. I am also willing to implement such tool in the division of primary care I am in while considering patient reported outcomes as well like awellhealth propose. Thanks for sharing this post.
Are the protocols be embedded in your EMR? There are also several vendors that we are looking into that allow institution-specific protocols and the ability to track compliance, outcomes, costs. Our vendors are mainly focused on the orthopedics and cardiac spaces and include Force Therapeutics, Care Sense, and SeamlessMD.
We have prioritized the need for collaboration when developing standard protocols. One important goal has been to allow many to collaborate and make changes to process documents. We’ve used wiki software to manage this kind of collaboration as it allows for the linking and easy navigation of interrelated process documents. The tools are flexible and can be learned without a lot technical background. There are many free/open source solutions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software.
I do not have specific recommendations, but some general views. IT platform can be effective, but the integration in daily clinic most often fails. Clinicians only use what helps them with taking care of their patients and in a faster way. The two most important rules are, in my opinion:
1. Involve the clinicians who are supposed to use the software. Not the 1-2 most IT positive, but somebody ‘in the middle’.
2. Develop the software ourself. Avoid companies who own the code – or else it will get very expensive on the long run.
We use a software suite called iProva from Infoland (https://www.infoland.eu/software/) to document all protocols with google like search function for your specialty, section, or hospital wide. Good program. Its integrated into our EMR with possiblities of interlinking (to antibiotic protocols of institutions, or departments or nursing protocols). Teams can build it and amend it and there is one protocol holder (responsible)