Creating an interactive interdisciplinary electronic assessment.

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Clinical Information Systems
• Electronic Health Records

Background:

• The transition to computerized patient records has caused clinical staff dissatisfaction.
• Traditional paper-based patient assessments are cumbersome and not integrated into electronic systems.
• Optimizing electronic health record (EHR) usability is crucial for efficient patient care documentation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe a method for converting traditional paper assessment forms into interactive digital assessments.
• To enhance the integration of patient assessments into the Veterans Affairs Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS).
• To address clinical staff concerns about EHRs working for them, not against them.

Main Methods:

• A Clinical Information Systems Coordinator transformed an existing paper assessment document.
• The transformation process utilized tools within the Veterans Affairs Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS).
• The goal was to create an interactive, interdisciplinary assessment tool.

Main Results:

• A method was successfully developed to digitize and enhance traditional assessment forms.
• The new interactive assessment is part of the computerized patient record.
• This facilitates better integration of assessment data into care planning and reimbursement processes.

Conclusions:

• Digitizing and transforming paper assessments into interactive electronic formats is feasible.
• This improves the utility of electronic health records for clinical documentation.
• The approach addresses user dissatisfaction by making the computer work for the clinicians.