User interface for prioritizing opportunities for clinical process improvement

• US 8,112,291 B2
• Filed: 03/30/2006
• Issued: 02/07/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/07/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Cerner Innovation, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Dyer, Barry C., Berg, Karen S.
• Primary Examiner(s): Rines, R. David
• Application Number:
  US11/278,090
• Publication Number:
  US 20070083389A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,140 Days
• Field of Search: 705/2, 705/3, 705/4
• US Class Current: 705/3
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/00 Administration; Management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0633 Workflow analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/00 Finance; Insurance; Tax strategies; Processing of corporate or income taxes
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/08 Insurance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 20/00 ICT specially adapted for therapies or health-improving plans, e.g. for handling prescriptions, for steering therapy or for monitoring patient compliance
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms

Abstract

Methods and user interfaces are provided for prioritizing opportunities for optimizing clinical processes within clinical facilities. An optimized practice process model may be defined for a particular clinical procedure, setting forth an optimal clinical process. In addition, critical levers may be identified within the optimal clinical process, representing the activities that have the greatest impact on outcomes. Clinical facilities may collect current measures for the critical levers, and the current measures may be compared against an optimal, benchmark, and/or target measure. Based on the comparison, opportunities for clinical process optimization may be identified. User interfaces are provided for prioritizing the opportunities, for example, based on benefit indexes and effort indexes determined for each opportunity.

Claims

1. A computer-storage medium storing computer-useable instructions that, when used by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method in a clinical computing environment for providing an opportunity prioritization chart for facilitating the analysis of a plurality of opportunities for improving a clinical process at one or more healthcare facilities, the clinical process being of a particular type of clinical process, the method comprising:

identifying the plurality of opportunities for improving the clinical process by comparing current measures from the clinical process at the one or more healthcare facilities against an optimized practice process model defining an optimal process flow for the type of clinical process;

determining a benefit index for each opportunity by;

accessing benefit metrics from the optimized practice process model, the benefit metrics including one or more financial factors and one or more non-financial factors,

receiving a user-inputted weighting to adjust contributions of the one or more financial factors and the one or more non-financial factors to the benefit index for each opportunity, and

calculating the benefit index for each opportunity as a function of the current measures from the clinical process at the one or more healthcare facilities and weighted benefit metrics provided by applying the user-inputted weighting to the one or more financial factors and the one or more non-financial factors;

determining an effort index for each opportunity by;

accessing effort metrics from the optimized practice process model, and

calculating the effort index for each opportunity as a function of the current measures from the clinical process at the one or more healthcare facilities and the effort metrics;

generating the opportunity prioritization chart using the plurality of opportunities and the benefit index and effort index determined for each opportunity, the opportunity prioritization chart comprising a two-dimensional graph having a first dimension corresponding with benefit index and a second dimension corresponding with effort index, wherein the opportunity prioritization chart is generated by;

locating each opportunity in the opportunity prioritization chart along the first dimension based on a benefit index determined for each opportunity, and

locating each opportunity in the opportunity prioritization chart along the second dimension based on an effort index determined for each opportunity; and

providing the opportunity prioritization chart for presentation to a user.

2. The computer-storage medium of claim 1, wherein each of the opportunities is associated with one or more critical levers defined by an optimal process flow, each critical lever corresponding with an activity within the optimal process flow that has been predetermined to have a greater potential to impact outcomes for the particular type of clinical process as compared to other activities in the optimal process flow that have not been predetermined as critical levers, wherein the optimal process flow and one or more critical levers have been predefined based at least in part on analysis of one or more selected from the following:

medical literature, published medical guidelines, and operational evidence collected from a plurality of clinical facilities.

3. The computer-storage medium of claim 1, wherein the opportunity prioritization chart comprises two or more value zones, each value zone representing an area of the opportunity prioritization chart providing an indication of a value for each opportunity located within the value zone based on the benefit index and effort index associated with each opportunity.

4. The computer-storage medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:

providing an opportunity summary area configured to display a list of opportunities for clinical process improvement, wherein the opportunity summary area provides for selection of the plurality of opportunities displayed in the opportunity prioritization chart.

5. The computer-storage medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises providing an assumptions area configured to display one or more assumption values used to calculate at least one of the benefit index and effort index for each opportunity.

6. The computer-storage medium of claim 5, wherein the assumptions area comprises one or more input fields for receiving one or more assumption values used to calculate at least one of the benefit index and effort for each opportunity.

7. The computer-storage medium of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises providing a total financial benefits area configured to display a total financial benefits for the plurality of opportunities displayed in the opportunity prioritization chart.

8. A computer-storage medium storing computer-useable instructions that, when used by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform a method in a clinical computing environment for providing an opportunity prioritization chart for facilitating the analysis of a plurality of opportunities for improving a clinical process at one or more healthcare facilities, the clinical process being of a particular type of clinical process, the method comprising:

identifying the plurality of opportunities for improving the clinical process by comparing current measures from the clinical process at one or more healthcare facilities against an optimized practice process model defining an optimal process flow for the type of clinical process;

determining a benefit index for each opportunity from the plurality of opportunities by;

accessing benefit metrics from the optimized practice process model, the benefit metrics including one or more financial factors and one or more non-financial factors,

receiving a user-inputted weighting to adjust contributions of the one or more financial factors and the one or more non-financial factors to the benefit index for each opportunity, and

calculating the benefit index for each opportunity as a function of the current measures from the clinical process at the one or more healthcare facilities and weighted benefit metrics provided by applying the user-inputted weighting to the one or more financial factors and the one or more non-financial factors;

determining an effort index for each opportunity from the plurality of opportunities by;

accessing effort metrics from the optimized practice process model, and

calculating the effort index for each opportunity as a function of the current measures from the clinical process at the one or more healthcare facilities and the effort metrics;

providing a first user interface component for display, the first user interface component comprising a list of opportunities based on the plurality of opportunities identified, wherein the first interface component provides for user selection of at least one opportunity from the list of opportunities to provide one or more selected opportunities;

generating the opportunity prioritization chart using the one or more selected opportunities and the benefit and effort index determined for each of the one or more selected opportunities, the opportunity prioritization chart comprising a two-dimensional graph having a first dimension corresponding with benefit index and a second dimension corresponding with effort index, wherein the opportunity prioritization chart is generated by;

locating each selected opportunity in the opportunity prioritization chart along the first dimension based on a benefit index determined for each selected opportunity, and

locating each selected opportunity in the opportunity prioritization chart along the second dimension based on an effort index determined for each selected opportunity; and

providing a second user interface component for display, the second user interface component including the opportunity prioritization chart.

9. The computer-storage medium of claim 8, wherein each of the plurality of opportunities is associated with one or more critical levers defined by the optimal process flow, each critical lever corresponding with an activity within the optimal process flow that has been predetermined to have a greater potential to impact outcomes for the particular type of clinical process as compared to other activities in the optimal process flow that have not been predetermined as critical levers.

10. The computer-storage medium of claim 8, wherein the opportunity prioritization chart comprises two or more value zones, each value zone representing an area of the opportunity prioritization chart providing an indication of a value for each selected opportunity located within the value zone based on the benefit index and effort index associated with each selected opportunity.

11. The computer-storage medium of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises providing an assumptions area configured to display one or more assumption values used to calculate at least one of the benefit index and effort index for each opportunity.

12. The computer-storage medium of claim 11, wherein the assumptions area comprises one or more input fields for receiving one or more assumption values used to calculate at least one of the benefit index and effort for each opportunity.

13. The computer-storage medium of claim 8, wherein the method further comprises providing a total financial benefits area configured to display a total financial benefits for the plurality of selected opportunities displayed in the opportunity prioritization chart.

14. A computing device having a processor configured to perform a method in a clinical computing environment for providing an opportunity prioritization chart for facilitating the analysis of a plurality of opportunities for improving a clinical process at one or more healthcare facilities, the clinical process being of a particular type of clinical process, the method comprising:

identifying the plurality of opportunities for improving the clinical process by comparing current measures from the clinical process at the one or more healthcare facilities against an optimized practice process model defining an optimal process flow for the type of clinical process;

determining a benefit index for each opportunity by;

accessing benefit metrics from the optimized practice process model, the benefit metrics including one or more financial factors and one or more non-financial factors,

receiving a user-inputted weighting to adjust contributions of the one or more financial factors and the one or more non-financial factors to the benefit index for each opportunity, and

calculating the benefit index for each opportunity as a function of the current measures from the clinical process at the one or more healthcare facilities and weighted benefit metrics provided by applying the user-inputted weighting to the one or more financial factors and the one or more non-financial factors;

determining an effort index for each opportunity by;

accessing effort metrics from the optimized practice process model, and

calculating the effort index for each opportunity as a function of the current measures from the clinical process at the one or more healthcare facilities and the effort metrics;

generating the opportunity prioritization chart using the plurality of opportunities and the benefit index and effort index determined for each opportunity, the opportunity prioritization chart comprising a two-dimensional graph having a first dimension corresponding with benefit index and a second dimension corresponding with effort index, wherein the opportunity prioritization chart is generated by;

locating each opportunity in the opportunity prioritization chart along the first dimension based on a benefit index determined for each opportunity, and

locating each opportunity in the opportunity prioritization chart along the second dimension based on an effort index determined for each opportunity; and

providing the opportunity prioritization chart for presentation to a user.

15. The computing device of claim 14, wherein each of the opportunities is associated with one or more critical levers defined by an optimal process flow, each critical lever corresponding with an activity within the optimal process flow that has been predetermined to have a greater potential to impact outcomes for the particular type of clinical process as compared to other activities in the optimal process flow that have not been predetermined as critical levers, wherein the optimal process flow and one or more critical levers have been predefined based at least in part on analysis of one or more selected from the following:

medical literature, published medical guidelines, and operational evidence collected from a plurality of clinical facilities.

16. The computing device of claim 14, wherein the opportunity prioritization chart comprises two or more value zones, each value zone representing an area of the opportunity prioritization chart providing an indication of a value for each opportunity located within the value zone based on the benefit index and effort index associated with each opportunity.

17. The computing device of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises:

providing an opportunity summary area configured to display a list of opportunities for clinical process improvement, wherein the opportunity summary area provides for selection of the plurality of opportunities displayed in the opportunity prioritization chart.

18. The computing device of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises providing an assumptions area configured to display one or more assumption values used to calculate at least one of the benefit index and effort index for each opportunity.

19. The computing device of claim 18, wherein the assumptions area comprises one or more input fields for receiving one or more assumption values used to calculate at least one of the benefit index and effort for each opportunity.

20. The computing device of claim 14, wherein the method further comprises providing a total financial benefits area configured to display a total financial benefits for the plurality of opportunities displayed in the opportunity prioritization chart.