Atlantic Health Implements a Computerized Physician Order Entry System

Greencastle improves patient safety and care by assisting with the implementation of new medical technology.

Atlantic Health is one of the largest non-profit health care systems in New Jersey.  It operates both hospitals and health care facilities, staffed with over 11,000 employees and over 3,000 physicians. It has been distinguished by FORTUNE Magazine as being among the “100 Best Companies to Work For®”.

 

In 2006, Atlantic Health endeavored to increase patient safety and improve overall patient outcomes.  It envisioned this end state through the implementation and high adoption of Computerized Provider Order Management (CPOM) system technology by physicians and staff.  The use of CPOM also would also allow Atlantic Health to participate in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s (ARRA) Meaningful Use program. Under this program, providers must show that they are “meaningfully using” their certified Electronic Health Record (EHR) technology by meeting certain measures, such as recording patient information as structured data or exchanging summary care records.

 

The challenge to Atlantic Health was not only to implement a CPOM system and achieve high physician and staff adoption, but also to improve existing processes to nest them with the new technology.  In addition, there was an inevitable requirement to establish development and training management in the CPOM system for all affected clinical and ancillary departments.

 

Greencastle’s role on the project was to provide complete program oversight for the implementation and physician adoption of a highly integrated CPOM system.  Greencastle managed the Clinical Program Management Office for the project sponsor to coordinate the full implementation and roll-out of the Atlantic Health CPOM program.  Greencastle provided two principal services: program management for the overall coordination of the CPOM Program activities, and the roll-out support necessary for an efficient and effective deployment of CPOM technology to units across the Atlantic Health system.  The objective of the engagement was to ensure that Atlantic Health implemented CPOM with high levels of process performance and user adoption.  To achieve this, Greencastle assisted with the following tasks:

 

• Roll-out planning for the Atlantic Health System, individual hospitals, and the macro unit
• Program governance and guiding committee facilitation
• Program communications
• Resource coordination and synchronization
• Process mapping and improvement
• Content management
• Change management for plan adoption

 

Greencastle’s partnership with Atlantic Health to implement a CPOM program resulted in significant improvement to patient care.  For instance, there was a dramatic reduction in medication administration through the development of a closed loop medication management system.  This system significantly decreased the turn-around time for processing orders and the amount of incomplete orders.  The quantity of paper orders entered by physicians also became highly limited because of the high reliance on technology for information and access.

Lastly, the CPOM implementation was not only highly adopted by Atlantic Health’s physicians and staff, it also met the usage requirements mandated by ARRA’s Meaningful Use program.  This allowed Atlantic Health to realize a financial return through successful attestation to Meaningful Use and prevent future reimbursement penalties.