Ambulatory Care Transformed by “Organized” Alerts

Maximizing Clinical Alerts

Ambulatory Care Transformed by “Organized” Alerts

“Doctors want data, but they don’t have time to review all that is available,” said Mitchell A. Adler, MD, CMIO of Northwell Health Physician Partners, echoing a common sentiment among physicians. Unfortunately, time restrictions can hamper a doctor’s ability to engage data effectively.

The good news is that Healthix, along with algorithms and thoughtful routing, enables health entities to easily consume massive patient data – including real-time Healthix Alerts. Healthix pushes thousands of alerts into Northwell’s internal health information exchange (HIE), notifying doctors about their patients’ admissions to and discharges from EDs and other facilities. This huge volume of alerts is filtered using algorithms in Northwell’s HIE, then routed to task lists in the ambulatory EHR at each Northwell facility. Site clinical administrators handle alerts according to the directions of each physician. This could mean contacting patients to arrange appointments or forwarding alerts to doctors so they can act on the information themselves.

“Pinpointing the type of alerts and information most relevant to care is critical in making faster and better informed clinical decisions.”

– Mitchell A. Adler, MD, CMIO ,
Northwell Health Physician Partners

Doctors find the alerts useful in closing information gaps. “Hospitals don’t always advise physicians when their patients leave the hospital,” said Dr. Adler, regarding the essential role that alerts play in the continuum of care. Knowing when a patient is discharged from a facility helps providers arrange the right interventions.