Linking interdisciplinary patient care standards to clinical information systems using structured actions.

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Clinical Informatics
• Health Economics

Background:

• Intermountain Healthcare developed over 700 evidence-based inpatient interdisciplinary patient care standards.
• The goal was to improve patient care by reducing practice variability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify and structure action concepts from care standards.
• To define embedded work items and financial values for these concepts.
• To enable patient workload and cost prediction using coded concepts.

Main Methods:

• Developing a compositional terminology model for action concepts.
• Defining clinical information granularity, required experience (e.g., licensure), and effort for actions.
• Using coded concepts as a construct for application development.

Main Results:

• A structured framework for action concepts within care standards.
• The ability to link clinical actions to specific work items and financial values.
• Foundation for predicting patient workload and associated costs.

Conclusions:

• Structured action concepts from care standards can enable accurate patient workload and cost prediction.
• This approach facilitates a more standardized and predictable healthcare cost model.
• Potential for improved resource allocation and financial management in healthcare settings.