The new VA Provider Digital Health Committee has begun meeting monthly. Members include a VPSA representative, eight VPSA members, our chief and assistant medical information officers, one of the VA senior medical directors (the committee’s executive sponsor), the manager of Provider Strategic Initiatives, and staff representing VCH Clinical Informatics. The January meeting was an opportunity for the members to introduce themselves and to review the group’s objectives. The February and March meetings saw members dive into a number of issues as summarized below.

Tickets and project prioritization

Cerner change requests were discussed at the February meeting. These include small-scale changes which can be made easily and would improve use of the system with existing tools, mid-scale projects that require build effort from Regional Digital Solutions, and large-scale projects that impact the enterprise build across VPP and require significant effort. Committee members were asked to review the small-scale and mid-scale projects and prioritize offline for further discussion at the March meeting.

Verbal/telephone orders

Interim Director, Nursing Professional Practice, Jennifer Lee and Nursing Practice Initiative Lead Alyson gave a presentation at the February meeting on the ongoing issue of verbal/telephone orders that are areas of practice concern since Cerner go-lives. They shared a strategy to address the issue and gathered input. Current resources require more information and nuance between phone and verbal orders and how to enact these. They are looking to create step-by-step guidelines to provide support for nurses and providers on how to safely give and receive a phone order.

Goals and methods

These were discussed at the March meeting with a focus on options for improving electronic health records. The benefits of coaching were articulated given that overlapping features in Cerner make the software harder to learn. The committee expressed its wish for the creation of a dashboard with clear headers to differentiate critical decisions from other items.

Committee’s first project

For their first project, committee members will look at how to standardize communication between providers and the interdisciplinary team in CST Cerner. Members will follow up with their colleagues about current strategies and observe how others are documenting interdisciplinary communication. The next meeting will include a demonstration for the team’s review.

VPSA’s role on the committee

Physiatrist Dr. Darren Lee is VPSA’s representative on the VA Provider Digital Health Committee. He was a member of the former VPSA CST Task Group and has a keen interest in using technology to improve health-care systems. He did his training in the United States, where the use of Cerner was widespread.

“There is a diverse group of physicians who are part of the Digital Health Committee, and we represent many different perspectives,” said Dr. Lee. “We are making sure the physician voice—whether concerns or innovative ideas—is brought to the table. Over the short term, we’ll be responding to urgent and important requests for provider workflow and setting up mechanisms to triage concerns. Over the long term, I expect us to advocate for new and effective technology implementations.”

VPSA is supporting Dr. Lee and eight other physicians on the committee with sessional funding for time spent in meetings and doing other committee work.

Next meeting

The committee meets again on April 9. 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.