epic advanced visit types

Epic Glossary

Epic clinical applications.

Application for care and clinical documentation in the emergency department

Application for inpatient documentation performed by clinicians and may include notes, flowsheets, assessments, plan of care and medication administration. Used by nurses, nurse practitioners, managers, therapists, physicians, physician assistants, case managers and social workers.

EpicCare Ambulatory

Application for documenting care provided through outpatient visits, telephone calls, e-visits and refill requests.

Application for the ordering of workflows of inpatient orders. Can be used to share order details, sign orders, place orders and find orders.

Epic Ancillary Clinical Applications

Application for any procedure requiring anesthesia

Application for chemotherapy ordering, administration and cancer staging. Used by inpatient and outpatient oncologists, nurses, pharmacists, research and infusion staff.

Application for laboratory information systems. Used by phlebotomists, nurses, techs, pathologists and central receivers.

Clinical Case Management

Application designed to centralize the workflows for case managers.

Application for cardiovascular information system. Used to order and document cardiology procedures and cases.

Infection Control

Application for infection surveillance, which helps detect, monitor and report certain types of infections in the inpatient setting.

Application for the operating room. Helps prepare, schedule and document all information related to surgery.

Application for radiology information system. Used for ordering, scheduling and performing imaging procedures.

Application for documenting perinatal care. Used to document a patient’s entire pregnancy, admit babies and document newborn assessments.

Willow Inpatient Pharmacy

Application for inpatient prescription pharmacy system. Used in the hospital setting for admitted patients, procedures, surgeries and diagnostics.

Epic Access Applications

Application for managing patient movement (admissions, transfers and discharge from units throughout the hospital).

Application for scheduling appointments, creating provider/resource schedules, and keeping schedules up to date with changes.

Health Information Management

Application for managing health information. Used to handle releases of information from a patient’s chart, manage deficiencies as physicians complete notes and sign orders, and facilitate the coding of accounts.

Application for managing the patient database.

Application for managing patient registration over the front desk and over the phone.

Epic Revenue Applications

Access and revenue cycle (arcr).

Group of revenue and billing operational Subject Matter Experts who provide input in the design, build and implementation.

Resolute Hospital Billing & Claims

Application for collecting and reviewing charges, billing facility (hospital) charges to insurance companies and patients, following up on outstanding accounts and collecting payments for services.

Resolute Professional Billing & Claims

Application for collecting and reviewing charges, billing professional (physician) charges to insurance companies and patients, following up on outstanding accounts and collecting payments for services.

Other Epic Applications

EpicCare’s mobile app for the iPad. Designed to give providers secure and portable access to patient charts.

Care Everywhere Interoperability

Epic’s platform that supports the exchange of patient records with other providers outside our system. It ensures that patients’ health data follows them wherever they receive care.

Cogito Enterprise Intelligence (including Star Data Warehouse)

Module for several products in the reporting area. The huge amounts of clinical data that are collected by every part of the Epic system are stored in databases that can be queried to provide all manner of reporting to support care decisions, manage costs, and identify trends.

EpicCare Link

Web-based application that connects community providers (referring physicians, post-acute facilities, physician support staff) with secure access to select patient information.

Epic Hyperspace

Access point for RWJBarnabas Health physicians and staff. This is where Administrative and Clinical data is managed.

EpicCare’s mobile app for the iPhone and Droid. It gives providers secure and portable access to patient charts.

Healthy Planet Population Health

Application that provides a suite of reports, dashboard and workflow tools that allow Care Managers to manage patient populations in and apart from Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs).

Secure online application that allows patients to schedule appointments, view medications and request refills, message their provider for advice, and record their own health data (such as blood pressure and glucose levels).

Other Epic Terms & Acronyms

Best practice advisory (bpa).

An advisory configured by administrators can be triggered based on patient-based factors, among other things, and can be restricted as needed to prevent alert fatigue on the end users’ part. BPAs can appear in the Visit Navigator, Order Entry, and In Basket messages.

Chart Review

Central place in the Epic chart to find all Encounters for a patient.

Credentialed Trainers

People Epic trains and allows to train others.

Epic Together

Represents the RWJBH Epic implementation team, comprised of approximately 450 members.

A clinical contact with a patient. For example, an office visit, an admission, or a triage call. If more than one evaluation or procedure takes place at the visit, it is usually considered one encounter. In billing applications, charges or other transactions can be associated with encounters.

Foundation System

Epic’s standard system, which includes content and workflows based on the expertise and experience of the Epic community and the Epic staff.

Hospital Outpatient Department (HOD)

A specialty department that provides outpatient type care to patients who may or may not be admitted to the hospital. These departments often use a combination of clinical documentation tools from both EpicCare Ambulatory and EpicCare Inpatient. These departments also known as hospital service departments, but hospital outpatient department is the preferred term.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

Epic assists customers with measuring KPIs by providing a package of reports related to the business metrics that it considers crucial to monitoring the health of a customer system. Measuring KPIs is part of Epic’s Good Install program.

A series of sections meant to follow a particular workflow, such as an office visit or medication reconciliation. Common examples include the Visit Navigator and the Discharge Navigator.

Activity that allows you to use point and click functionality for HPI, ROS, and physical exam, generating text in your progress note.  OpTime Epic’s operating room management application.

A preconfigured group of orders commonly ordered together for a specific problem or diagnosis. Order Sets may be suggested based on entries on your patient’s problem list, and you can also mark Order Sets you use frequently as your favorites.

Preference List

A set of frequently used orders. Orders can be added to facility preference lists by members of your project team and you can also maintain your own personal preference list to include orders you have pre-related information prior to a patient’s arrival at the hospital. Preadmission helps prevent users from creating duplicate encounters.

Within Epic, any order that is not a medication is classified as a procedure. This includes orders for such things as lab tests, consults, supplies, and imaging.

Release of Information

Epic’s Health Information Management (HIM) application used to track and fulfill requests for patient health information.

Release of Information Activity

The main activity in Epic’s Release of Information application, where you can authorize, fulfill, and document requests for patient health information.

A documentation template. A group of orders and other elements, such as notes, chief complaints, SmartGroup Panels, and levels of service, that are commonly used together to document a specific type of visit. Using SmartSets reduces data entry time so you can focus more time on your patients.

A text template for charting that can include text, SmartPhrases, SmartLists, and SmartLinks. Frequently used in progress notes. They can be big or small many paragraphs or just one sentence.

Pre-configured text that can be used to standardize documentation, such as notes, within the system. SmartTools include SmartLinks, SmartLists, SmartPhrases, and SmartTexts.

Subject Matter Expert (SME)

Provides input during the workflow and content review.

Super Users

Local “experts” who provide input related to their area.

Healthcare IT Skills, Health Information Technology Career Advice, Healthcare IT Certifications, Project Management, Job Tips

Healthcare IT Skills, Health Information Technology Career Advice

Epic Systems Modules & Software – Hyperspace, Healthy Planet, ClinDoc

Epic Systems is a major provider of electronic health records software for large and medium-sized organizations. They were founded in 1979 by Judy Faulkner, who continues to lead the company. They are based in Verona, WI and sit on a massive 950 acre campus. They are privately-held, and have vowed to never be sold, to never to go public, and to never acquire other companies.

A key reason why Epic Systems has become a technology leader with healthcare organizations is that they built an integrated platform for almost all areas of care. When Epic sees the need to advance technology in a new specialty, let’s say Eye Care for example- they take the time to develop what they call “modules”, built on the same platform and data structure as all of their other products. Here is a breakdown of the major Epic Systems modules that they have released, along with the areas where they are used:

ASAP ER Module

ASAP is the Epic software module that deals with managing ER visits. It has a component that tracks which rooms are occupied, displaying room and bed status on monitors that are mounted on the walls near the nursing stations.

EpicCare Ambulatory

EpicCare Ambulatory is one of the main and largest components of the Epic platform. Primary Care and Specialty clinicians use the Ambulatory Module to document visits, place orders, send prescriptions, perform in-office procedures, review results, and send communications to patients .

Epic Beacon Oncology

Beacon Oncology is the chemotherapy module in the Epic software family. It is built around treatment plans for patients who are undergoing cancer treatment. Whereas most patient visits are either Outpatient or Inpatient, these visits are considered Series Visit Types , which span a longer amount of time.

Epic Bugsy (Infection Control)

Bugsy is the infection control module for Epic. It provides tools to monitor patients at risk for infection, identifies patients needing isolation, and with antimicrobial processes. It also helps with reporting infections to regulatory registries and other entities. Bugsy also integrates with Beaker, Epic’s lab product.

Epic Beaker

Epic Beaker is the laboratory system for a hospital lab. Orders that are placed either in other parts of Epic or in an external system are transmitted to Beaker via an HL7 Interface 1 for processing. When patients arrive to have their blood drawn, the results are entered into Beaker , which then get transmitted back to the ordering doctor.

The Bones module is Epic’s offering for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine.

Epic Bridges

Epic Bridges is the module for installing, configuring and maintaining interfaces to systems outside of Epic. There are tools to set up the interface connections either to or from other interfaces, as well as monitoring of interface messages. Bridges supports HL7 interfaces , as well as other communications protocols.

Epic Caboodle – aka Cogito Data Warehouse

This area of Epic software refers to the data warehouse and analytical tools used to store and retrieve large amounts of clinical data. The data can be queried to provide all manner of reporting to support care decisions, manage costs, and identify trends. Other data can be brought in from non-Epic systems, and then used along with Epic data to provide reporting results. Until mid-2016, the trade name for these tools was Cogito, from the Latin phrase  ergo sum : “I think, therefore I am”. In mid-2016, Epic renamed it to “Cabooble”, ie Kit & Caboodle. Get it?

Epic Cadence

Cadence is the Epic scheduling module for Outpatient and Specialty clinics. Any time you have an appointment with your doctor, their scheduling staff will use Cadence to book your appointment, then check you in on arrival. The physicians and other staff are able to see the schedule for the whole clinic, or just for their own patients. Many scheduling functions are performed from the Epic Snapboard, which is configured to show appointments for multiple providers in a department.

Epic Care Companion

Care Companion is an extension of the MyChart patient portal. It provides health coaching, education, and reminders to patients via MyChart to help them manage complex health conditions. For example, a patient with diabetes would get reminders to take medications on time, get lab work done, schedule periodic eye and foot exams, and monitor their diet and glucose.

Epic Care Everywhere

Care Everywhere is the network by which patient records are shared between different Healthcare organizations that use Epic. If you receive care at an Epic hospital in say, New York for example, then move to another state or even another country, your new care providers can run a Care Everywhere query from their instance of Epic to pull in your records from your previous providers. Care Everywhere  operates as a Health Information Exchange .

Epic Compass Rose

Compass Rose is a module that works to increase care coordination for patient populations. It is an extension of Healthy Planet, the population health suite, and it works to address social determinants of health, connect caregivers to support networks, help to connect people to community services, identify risks, and measure outcomes.

Epic Cosmos

Cosmos is the artificial intelligence tool that works to collect billions of clinical data points from Epic organizations to help providers answer clinical questions. It is designed to help medical specialties to form a more complete picture of patients’ health.

Epic Chronicles

Chronicles is the main database that runs much of the Epic software. Epic provides Healthcare clients with tools to run queries, maintain the database, and run reports. Chronicles is a non-relational database that sends data to Clarity, which is a relational database, and is used for advanced reporting.

Epic Clarity

Much of the data that is stored in the Chronicles database gets copied over to Clarity, which is a relational database that allows analysts to create more detailed and complex reports. Reports written against the Chronicles database are done using reporting workbench, which has data size and functionality limitations that do not exist with Clarity reports..

EpicCare ClinDoc (Inpatient)

EpicCare Inpatient, also known as ClinDoc is much like EpicCare Ambulatory, except that the clinical tasks are done in the hospital on admitted patients. This includes clinical notes, orders, medication administration, patient monitoring, and discharge orders.

Epic Cogito

Cogito is the name for the complete suite of Epic reporting tools. This includes the data warehouse, the dashboards used in many areas of Epic, Reporting Workbench, the Clarity data structure, and teh Chronicles data structure.

Epic Community Connect

Epic has provided a unique opportunity to allow large healthcare organizations to “sub-let” their Epic system to smaller organizations at a fee. For example, you may have a physician office with a handful of providers who would not be able to afford to purchase the Epic software on their own. A local large hospital system will organize a team to handle the entire project of software and hardware configuration, training, and maintenance. The hosting organizations typically charge a monthly per-provider fee.

Epic Cupid is the module for Cardiology practices. There are special clinical tools focused on cardiology care. Epic can also integrate  or interface with external EKG devices to bring the EKG readings into the medical record.

Epic Data Courier

Data courier is a utility used by Epic analysts and technical staff to move configuration changes between different environments. For example, an analyst will make changes in the POC (proof of concept) environment, then use data courier to move those changes to the test (TST) environment for testing. After testing, data courier will be used to migrate the changes to production (PRD). More on how IT environments are structured .

Epic Financial Assistance

The financial assistance module helps organizations that provide financial assistance to patients. It has financial counseling workflow tools to help capture financial counseling information and track discounts given to patients.

Epic Garden Plot

Garden plot is a little like Community Connect, in which a smaller organization is able to rent the EHR software from a larger hospital group. Garden Plot, however is leased to the client by Epic themselves, and the organization must be larger than 40 providers.

Epic Happy Together

Happy Together is Epic’s effort toward communicating clinical information across different systems, including data from competing vendors. Happy Together is implemented to help clinicians and patients. For clinicians, it provides a complete view of patients’ care across various organizations. Many patients use Epic’s patient portal MyChart at more than one Epic location, such as a primary care office from one organization, and a specialist from another. Happy Together enables patients to see their clinical data from multiple locations in one MyChart session.

EpicCare Home Health – (Dorothy)

Also known as Dorothy (from The Wizard of Oz) this is the module used in a home health setting, in which visiting caregivers (Nurse, Nurse Aides, PT, OT, etc) document care done in a patient’s home. Clinicians use a version of Epic called remote client that is installed on their local laptops. This program allows them to document in settings where they might not have any internet connection. Then after they finish their work, they can reconnect to their organization’s network and perform a sync that uploads their documentation to the main Epic servers.

Epic Hyperspace

Epic Hyperspace is not a clinical module in itself, but rather the actual application client that is presented to users of most areas of Epic. When a nurse, doctor, therapist, or administrative staff launch Epic, the front-end software that is presented to them is called Hyperspace. It is typically installed on hosted servers that are accessed by many workstations throughout an enterprise, rather than being installed on individual users’ PCs. Citrix is commonly used to host Hyperspace.

Since it is a core component of the Epic software system, upgrades almost always include an update of Hyperspace. Epic Hyperspace is configured to display different menus, tasks, and options to users depending on their specific roles. For example, a pharmacist will be presented with many medication-related options, while a family practice physician will be presented with options to document clinical visits, place orders, and perform other clinically relevant tasks.

Epic Hyperdrive

Introduced in 2023, Hyperdrive is Epic’s next generation version of the front-end application accessed by most end-users of Epic. It replaces Hyperspace for many clinical and operational functions. It is web-based code base that is intended to assist Epic developers in current and future development of features and functions, and it has some cosmetic improvements over Hyperspace.

Epic Haiku is an App for Android and Apple that allows doctors to access a limited version of EpicCare Ambulatory. They can see and respond to test results, access their schedule, and see other clinical data on their patients.

Epic Healthy Planet

Healthy Planet is Epic’s Population Management system to help organizations deliver better care for a given population of patients. It is a direct outcome of the Affordable Healthcare Act, which established voluntary entities called Accountable Care Organizations . An ACO is set up to pay providers not just for delivering services, but for the healthy outcome of the patients who are enrolled in the ACO. Healthy Planet  provides a suite of reports, dashboards, and workflow tools that allow Care Managers to manage patient populations in and apart from ACOs.

Epic Lumens

Lumens is the reporting module for endoscopy. It provides tools for viewing and managing endoscopy images sent to Epic by external endoscopy systems.

Healthy Planet Link

EpicCare Link enables outside health organizations to log into a web-based portal to see patient information from the Epic system of a larger Healthcare organization. Healthy Planet Link then extends some population health features to those outside entities. Those organizations can view risk scores and reports on their common patients.

Epic Kaleidoscope

Epic Kaleidoscope is the Ophthalmology (Eye Care) module for Epic. It allows Ophthalmologists and Optometrists to perform eye exams, document eye related procedures, and write contact lens and eyeglass prescriptions.

EpicCare Link

When a hospital or other healthcare enterprise installs Epic software, they typically interact with community physicians who do not have Epic, many of which do not have any electronic medical record system. EpicCare Link allows those providers to be given access to a web-based portal, allowing them to have limited use of the EMR to view activity on their patients who have received care at the associated hospital. It is usually configured to provide read-only access, meaning the external provider cannot place orders or do other clinical activity.

Lucy is not exactly a module, but is a concept of allowing patients to download and print their medical record in a usable format. This is called a Continuity of Care Document  (CCD), and is considered a form of a personal health record.

Epic MyChart

MyChart is the web-based system that allows patients to manage their medical care in many ways. They can view test results, past and future visits, orders, medications, and more. They can also request appointments with physicians and ask non-urgent medical questions. A supporting App for Android and Apple is also available. Also, a newer feature that is beginning to emerge is the ability to conduct video visits with physicians. More about patient portals .

MyChart Bedside

Where MyChart is focused mainly on the outpatient and specialty parts of the patient record, MyChart bedside is intended for use while a patient is admitted to the hospital. It provides online tools for tracking your progress toward discharge, and can be configured to provide patient education material.

Epic Open Scheduling

While a MyChart user needs to have registered before scheduling through that portal, Epic’s Open Scheduling feature allows organizations to publish a web URL that allows anyone to enter a request to be seen. A MyChart account is not needed. It is commonly used for routine scheduled procedures like mammograms. The patient will be required to answer a few medical and history questions, and then will be able to pick an appointment date and time. Even though the web page appears to be separate from MyChart or the rest of the system, the scheduling info is still sent to the main Epic system for staff to manage.

Epic OpTime

Epic OpTime is the Operating Room/ Surgery module for Epic. It has components for Inpatient Surgery as well as Outpatient Day Surgery.

Epic Payer Platform

Payer Platform is a module that allows healthcare organizations to exchange clinical information with insurance carriers to facilitate prior authorization and payment for services.

Epic Pedigree

Pedigree is Epic’s module to capture and analyze genetic information. Clinicians can build a family tree, manage family history, and get information on genetically related conditions.

Epic Phoenix

Phoenix is the module that supports organ transplants. Phoenix helps clinicians to keep track of follow-up tasks for recipients such as ongoing lab tests, rejection prevention and treatment, and medication management.

Epic Prelude (ADT Patient Registration)

ADT stands for Admission, Discharge, Transfer. ADT is a critical part of the entire organization’s system because this is where the key information and status of all patients is managed. The Prelude module covers the hospital registration and insurance functions. ADT is also referred to as Grand Central.

Radar is the dashboard configuration that is shared across almost all other Epic modules. Dashboards support reports, graphs, performance measures, helpful links, and much more pertaining to each area. For example, an OB dashboard will have measures relating to C-Section rates and number of births.

Epic Radiant

Epic Radiant is the Radiology module for Epic. It provides documentation, film tracking, and viewing of Radiology images.

Epic Slicer Dicer

Slicer Dicer is a visual reporting tool within Epic that allows non-technical users to easily create clinical reports by moving around reporting components in an editor. It works a bit like Crystal Reports or similar tools but has an easier user interface.

Epic Sonnet

Epic Sonnet is a trimmed-down version of the main clinical application that is aimed at smaller organizations that cannot afford or don’t need the full-featured version. Epic will offer Sonnet to organizations as a software service hosted at their campus data center in Verona, WI.

Reporting Workbench

This is Epic’s application-side reporting solution which allows IT analysts to create and manage reports on date from most parts of the system. Users work from templates to get data on patient lists, orders, appointments, diagnoses, and much more. In Reporting Workbench , users do not run SQL queries to the database, as the tool is visually oriented.

Epic Rover is the module that uses mobile devices to allow Inpatient nursing staff to do review and documentation tasks. Some of the functions that Rover helps with are chart review, medication administration, flowsheet documentation, and recording patient photos. It is not intended to take the place of Epic Hyperspace, the standard client for accessing clinical functions.

Epic Stork is the Obstetrics module for managing pregnancy episodes on the Outpatient side, and documenting deliveries in the hospital.

Epic Tapestry

Tapestry provides managed care administration, enabling organizations to enroll members, bill for insurance premiums, process referrals, and pay claims. It works within several different payment structures such as ACOs and various types of health plans.

Epic UserWeb

UserWeb is not a product used by clinicians, but is the web portal used by customers of Epic. It is used by analysts, project managers, resource managers, executives and others to access documentation, training, issue management and other tools for managing the system.

Epic Welcome Kiosk

The Welcome Kiosk is about the size and shape of a small ATM, and allows patients to check in for appointments, pay co-pay amounts, sign documents, and print receipts and other materials.

Epic Willow

Willow is the module which is used for the management of medications from a central pharmacy. It owns the core database of medications and the processes around medication cart filling and patient prescriptions. There are Inpatient and Ambulatory versions of Willow. The Inpatient side is implemented in a hospital pharmacy, and Ambulatory Willow is for outpatient and retail pharmacies.

Epic Wisdom

Wisdom is the Epic solution for dentists, dental hygienists, and dental assistants. It has tools for periodontal charting, tooth health charting, scheduling, treatment plans, and risk assessments.

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Lesson 7: Epic Appointment Scheduling Advanced Appointments

Published by Dwain Melton Modified over 4 years ago

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Presentation on theme: "Lesson 7: Epic Appointment Scheduling Advanced Appointments"— Presentation transcript:

Epic Basic Appointment Scheduling Patient Preferences

Lesson 2: Epic CHECK IN.

Epic Basic Appointment Scheduling Wait List

Lesson 3: Epic Appointment Scheduling Referrals

Lesson 8: Epic Appointment Scheduling Advanced Appointments

Lesson 5: Epic Past Appointment Scheduling

Lesson 12: Epic End of Day Status Procedure

Epic View Only Referrals

Epic Canceling and Rescheduling Appointments

Lesson 11: Epic Appointment Scheduling Viewing Options

Epic Basic Appointment Department Appointments Report

Lesson 3: Epic Advanced Scheduling

Lesson 9: Epic Advanced Scheduling

Epic Quick Appointment Scheduling

Lesson 4: Epic Appointment Scheduling Referrals

Lesson 13: Epic Appointment Scheduling Reports

Lesson 2: Epic Appointment Scheduling Referrals

Lesson 1: Epic Basic Appointment Scheduling Tutorial

The Appointment Desk.

Lesson 8: Epic Appointment Scheduling Wait List

About project

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Improving Patient Scheduling Outcomes with Epic

Co-authored by Brennan Turner, President and Co-Founder of The Joiner Firm .

Scheduling patients can be a deceptively complex process. While the idea of a patient selecting a time slot seems simple enough, there are several questions to consider:

• Does the patient have general questions or specific symptoms that may require an appointment with a specialist?
• Does the patient have an existing relationship with a provider?
• Is the patient new to the healthcare system?

As you can see, a clinic’s scheduling process is important in ensuring that appointments are scheduled accurately.

Appointments scheduled incorrectly are not always identified right away. In many instances the patient has already arrived, or the appointment is canceled at the last minute. This makes it difficult to ensure schedules are full and the provider’s time is maximized. When appointments are scheduled correctly the first time, there will be fewer last-minute cancellations and visit volume will increase.

Improving patient scheduling is key. The implementation of decision tree functionality can ensure that the patient is seen by the right provider at the right time. An effective decision tree can remove barriers to patient access, increase patient satisfaction, decrease revenue loss, and ensure effective time management. Decision trees are an Epic functionality that utilize rules and logic to aid a scheduler in navigating complex scheduling scenarios. Much of the decision tree logic runs in the background, unbeknownst to the scheduler, and references specific patient data within Epic to guide the scheduler through the scheduling process.

Epic is a leading Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software that stores all patient data, ranging from patient demographics to medical history. Since it is an electronic database, healthcare organizations can leverage this patient data against their specific clinic workflows through the implementation of decision trees.

An effective decision tree can remove barriers to patient access, increase patient satisfaction, decrease revenue loss, and ensure effective time management.

Sendero sat down with Brennan Turner , a senior Epic Cadence consultant with The Joiner Firm , who we recently partnered with at a large healthcare provider to improve their clinic-specific scheduling workflows. We discussed the functionalities and benefits of scheduling with Epic decision trees:

What are Epic decision trees, and how can they help improve the patient scheduling process?

Brennan Turner : Decision trees are scheduling tools in Epic that utilize a set of predetermined questions and logic to guide a scheduler to correctly make an appointment with a clinic, without having to know the specific scheduling rules of each department. This tool can improve scheduling accuracy by making sure the right visit type, provider, and location are selected the first time, with an overall benefit of lowering no-show and cancellation rates.

How does this improve patient satisfaction?

What impact does this have on training of new staff?

Brennan Turner : Scheduling rules are often either stored in a repository, written on a sticky note, or live within the knowledge of seasoned schedulers. This can make it difficult for new staff to schedule appointments accurately, causing frustration for the patient, the clinics, and the providers. With the decision-making process being built within Epic and automated through decision trees, there is less clinic-specific information a scheduler needs to learn.

Decision tree design considerations for healthcare organizations

An effective decision tree is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Each organization needs to consider their unique requirements and operational needs:

Considerations for Clinics

Decision trees can provide a high degree of automated control to ensure that patients are being scheduled for the right visit at the right time with the right provider:

• Clinic level payor restrictions can be built to filter out certain insurance types. The decision tree uses logic in the background to determine if a patient’s primary insurance is accepted at a clinic.
• Age restrictions can also be built at the clinic level if there is a certain age group that the clinic does not see. As noted above, a pediatric clinic can set an age restriction to only accept new patients over 2 years of age.
• Clinics with subspecialists or unique programs can also utilize decision trees to aid in scheduling accuracy. For example, a clinic with a weight-management program can ensure qualifying patients are scheduled in the right time slots with the right subset of providers.

Considerations for Physicians

Every physician, regardless of their practice, serves a unique panel of patients. Decision trees can help maintain unique workflows through monitoring patients’ reasons for office visits.

To ensure that patients’ concerns are not only identified prior to the visit, but also scheduled properly, a decision tree can be built to “flip” an appointment type to the proper visit type. A series of questions can be asked by the scheduler to determine if the original visit type is correct. For example, a patient with multiple concerns may need a little extra time, so the decision tree can suggest offering an extended office visit vs. a standard office visit. Additionally, a patient could call in with a specific concern that warrants its own specific type of visit, such as ADD/ADHD care.

Considerations for Implementation

Implementing decision tree functionality is no light undertaking; it involves detailed conversations across the clinic to verify that no details are overlooked in the process. To ensure that decision trees are inclusive of the entire clinics’ workflows, meetings need to be held with clinic management, subject matter experts, front desk personnel, and anyone else that may be involved in the scheduling process. It is very important at this step to get everyone past a theoretical understanding of what Epic can do and get them to critically think about how this application will affect their scheduling if they were to solely rely on it to accurately reflect their clinic processes.

Epic decision tree design is a complex process involving detailed scrutiny prior to the build and implementation phase. Sendero’s partnership with Epic allows for technical analysts to obtain the necessary clinical considerations and focus on building an effective program. We can liaise with a clinic and focus on communication, process alignment, and project execution.

Interested in learning more about Sendero’s expertise in this area? Use the form below to reach out to one of our consultants.

By Christina Speros and Harris Neuens

Decision trees can improve scheduling accuracy by making sure the right visit type, provider, and location are selected the first time, with an overall benefit of lowering no-show and cancellation rates. Brennan Turner, President and Co-Founder of The Joiner Firm

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A large non-profit healthcare provider experienced significant growth through mergers and acquisitions, now providing services to more than five million patients. As a result, the organization faced a multitude of overlapping strategic and departmental initiatives.

After the merger of two large Texas-based healthcare systems, a need existed to change to one electronic medical record (EMR) system across the enterprise.

After a healthcare system went through a merger, they launched a project to consolidate Find a Doctor websites to improve the patient experience.

A large healthcare system was notified that it is now required to report compliance as one entity, rather than separate small business units. Through existing relationships, the client learned of Sendero's experience with PCI Compliance and requested assistance.

About the Author

Harris is a Consultant in our Dallas office with industry experience in healthcare and financial services.

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Cadence 201 - Chapter 10 - Creating Visit Type Modifiers

by diriley , Jul. 2016

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Ten Benefits to Epic Scheduling Optimization

When patients call a health system to schedule an appointment, they expect the same experience whether they’re talking to primary care, neurology, or pediatrics. And they expect to be able to get an appointment that meets their preferences for location, date, time of day, and provider.

In theory, this should be an efficient process, but it usually isn’t. In a large organization, different departments and medical practices typically maintain different sets of scheduling rules. These rules often change and, in some cases, are only documented on paper.

👉 Download Your Free Guide to Scheduling Optimization

When scheduling policies and procedures are siloed and decentralized, errors can occur, appointments are missed or skipped, and revenue is lost. This results in a poor patient experience and frustration for staff and providers.

Enterprise Scheduling Optimization

Fortunately, there’s a better way. Using existing functionality within Epic Cadence, an Enterprise Scheduling Optimization Project (ESOP) can help organizations efficiently guide patients to the ideal appointment based on their preferences, resulting in fewer no-shows and better schedule balance, among other benefits.

In our new guide to scheduling optimization , our Epic experts explain how health systems can improve efficiency and increase revenue by getting patients to the right provider at the right time in the right location using automation and questionnaire-driven Decision Trees in the Epic scheduling solution.

An ESOP requires specialized technical expertise from outside consultants and an investment of time and effort from internal staff, but the ROI on these projects can be significant, helping clients achieve the following 10 goals:

• Reduce cancellations, no-shows, and re-visits . Ensuring that visits are scheduled where and when patients want them improves the patient experience, provides for a more predictable schedule, and leads to increased visit volume and practice revenue.
• Reduce number of visit types . This decreases the complexity of scheduling visits with specialty practices, streamlines the scheduling process, and gets patients’ appointments on the books faster.
• Reduce scheduling inbound call length . This allows staff to schedule and confirm an appointment date, time, and provider with a patient in less time, improving the patient experience and decreasing the likelihood of being put on hold.
• Reduce time to Third Next Available Appointment . This common KPI metric is a reflection of expected patient wait time. Decreasing this number increases the likelihood that a patient can schedule an appointment when desired, which improves satisfaction and retention rates.
• Increase first-call resolution . Enable patients to schedule or reschedule an appointment, or otherwise get answers to their questions, without having to hang up and call a practice directly and/or call back when the practice manager is in the office.
• Increase visit volume . With patients less likely to no-show or cancel, practices can conduct more visits in the same amount of time. Increased volume improves efficiency, which in turn improves revenue capture.
• Increase resource utilization . Increased visit volume allows practices to better utilize physical equipment, such as MRI machines or blood labs. Meanwhile, efficient scheduling enables highly skilled clinical staff to “practice to their license” while low-acuity visits types are router to NPs and PAs.
• Reduce insurance claim processing time . Decreasing complexity in scheduling workflows means that patients are more likely to be scheduled for the right appointment at the right time with the right provider. This streamlines claims processing, as errors or missing information are less likely.
• Reduce claims denial rate . The accuracy of information captured when an appointment is scheduled – such as visit type, provider name, and new vs. returning patient – decreases the likelihood that claims are incorrect and therefore likely to be denied.
• Increase revenue capture . The combination of accurate coding, reduced denials, and increased visit volume all enable a practice to capture more revenue.

At Healthcare IT Leaders, our Epic experts have a track record of success with optimizing and centralizing scheduling for large provider organizations throughout the United States. Download our free guide to learn more .

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