The VA Provider Digital Health (DHC) Committee has been meeting monthly since January and members are working well together and tackling actionable items. As a first step, committee members are working to identify Cerner change ideas that will be most impactful to providers. The committee is also looking into ways to address care issues and care gaps and to standardize one tool to address non-emergency situations.

Committee project: Resident ordering of diagnostic tests

Emergency room physicians are noting that consulting residents are ordering diagnostic tests against the emergency physician instead of their supervising physician. This creates work for both supervising and emergency physicians, and risks creating gaps in care. The committee has reviewed and endorsed a project charter to solve this problem and will keep VGH providers informed of its progress.

Committee project: Inter-team communication

Committee members approved a proposal to harmonize our institutional approach to inter-team communication. Consideration is needed for all educators who are teaching new nurses. Hospitals and units that are doing well with inter-team communication could be used as pilot sites.

ThoughtSpot presentation

ThoughtSpot is an analytics platform that allows users to explore, analyze and visualize data without needing technical expertise. Committee members had the opportunity to review the platform, which has the potential to accelerate decision making and provide timely insights. Members were given a demo, highlighting ThoughtSpot’s ability to search data, monitor key performance indicators, and type simple questions into the tool and receive answers. Data is limited to what is already in the tool; it can look for trends and anomalies and set basic thresholds.

Next meeting

The committee meets again on May 14. If you have an item you wish to be brought forward at one of these meetings, please contact Manager, Provider Strategic Initiatives & Engagement, Laura Mc Evoy.