– The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Health System will implement three TransformativeMed apps to increase workflow efficiency, enhance clinical communications and improve clinician experience
– The TransformativeMed applications that UAB is implementing are fully integrated, enabling residents and staff to quickly extract, evaluate, document and take action on data from multiple sources, regardless of their location.
TransformativeMed, a Seattle, OR-based provider improving the usability of Electronic Health Records (EHRs), with specialty-specific and disease-specific workflows directly embedded within the EHRs, announced today a partnership with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Health System to improve clinical workflow efficiency, support high-quality patient care and increase provider satisfaction to reduce the risk of burnout. As part of the partnership, TransformativeMed’s Core Work Manager App, Core Work Manager Mobile App, and Core Notify App will be implemented in UAB Hospital.
UAB Medicine comprises the School of Medicine and the $4.3 billion UAB Health System that includes all of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s patient-care activities and 2,300 licensed beds in six hospitals, one of which is UAB Hospital—the third-largest public hospital in the United States. UAB Hospital is consistently named among the “Best Hospitals” by U.S. News & World Report, which also ranks many of its medical specialties among the best programs of their kind in the United States.
Alleviating EHR Usability & Clinician Burnout
UAB believes TransformativeMed will help physicians, residents and other clinicians work more intuitively and efficiently, which helps alleviate the technological burdens associated with EHR usability and the cognitive overload leading to clinician burnout. According to recent research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, unfavorable productivity and associated burnout rates are costing U.S. health systems more than $4.6 billion a year in physician turnover and reduced clinical hours. Similarly, a report published by the National Academy of Medicine in October 2019, “Taking Action Against Clinician Burnout: A Systems Approach to Professional Well-Being,” urges health systems to pursue several goals, among them: “improve the usability and relevance of health IT” and “reduce tasks that do not improve patient care.”
“As an academic medical center, we want to instill the principles of high-quality, compassionate and evidence-based patient care with our trainees, while minimizing the effects of professional stress that can lead to burnout,” said Brenessa Lindeman, MD, MEHP, Associate Designated Institutional Official for the Clinical Learning Environment at UAB. “We believe TransformativeMed will evolve our EHR, transforming it into technology that enhances clinicians’ training or practice, thus enabling them to deliver optimal patient care.”
UAB Health System to Implement 3 TransformativeMed Apps
The TransformativeMed applications that UAB is implementing are fully integrated, enabling residents and staff to quickly extract, evaluate, document and take action on data from multiple sources, regardless of their location. In greater detail, the applications are:
Core Work Manager App: Embedded in the EHR, the Core Work Manager App delivers rich, actionable information visually presented in a format unique to each specialty’s priorities. Clinical teams caring for a patient have accurate, timely and actionable information to organize rounds, convey discharge readiness and conduct handoffs. A list of patients includes the most recent list of issues and is organized based on the information that each team needs to maximize relevance.
Core Work Manager Mobile App: Everything clinicians need is delivered through this mobile app that allows a bidirectional flow of information between the EHR and the clinician’s smartphone or another mobile device. Their team’s patient to-do list can be reviewed and updated with the latest information from a personalized patient list, and tasks can be created and edited with voice-to-text and then automatically uploaded to the EHR for the entire care team to see. This capability minimizes entering the same information multiple times and ensures the team is updated in real-time. With HIPAA-compliant security built-in, providers and patients can trust that personal health information (PHI), is secure and protected.
Core Notify App: With Notify, clinicians can subscribe to specific alerts, ensuring faster response rates. While easily configured based on user or facility, the Notify app also automatically learns clinicians’ preferences, so their alerts are always relevant and actionable.
“We are excited to partner with an organization that recognizes that specialty-specific content and workflows are essential in helping providers spend less time hunting and pecking around their EHR for information,” said Doug Cusick, CEO at TransformativeMed. “We are proud to work with UAB as a leading healthcare organization and commend them for taking action to improve the lives of their clinicians, as well as the patients and families they serve.”
