AHRQ wants to hear from small and medium-sized practices on how they are studying or redesigning their workflow either before or after HIT implementation. The agency is interested in information on tools, methods, technologies, and the data reporting procedures used to analyze and possibly improve the delivery of healthcare in such settings.
In addition, AHRQ not only wants to hear from small and medium-sized healthcare practices or clinics but the agency also wants to see comments and opinions from workflow or health IT experts, vendors, professional associations, and others that have developed and or used workflow analysis or redesign tools.
Information is needed on:
- Number of physicians, providers, and staff in the practice or clinic
- Number of patient visits in the practice or clinic in 2008
- Any ancillary services located on-site at the practice or clinic. Examples can include lab, radiology, PT, occupational and speech therapy, and pharmacy
- Specific health IT applications and software that have been used in EMRs
- The use for each health IT application
- Tools used to perform process analysis, flowcharting, task analysis
- How to avoid the pitfalls of using complicate or inappropriate tools and software
- Impact of health IT on the organization and on workflow
- Support that helped during the implementation of IT
- The success for interfacing health IT applications
- Impact of health IT on job satisfaction, efficiency, workload, decision making, quality, and costs
- How health IT impacts communication in the practice, clinic staff, or external healthcare organizations
The comments are due by August 24, 2009 and should be sent to workflowRFI@ahrq.hhs.gov.
