Case Study Analysis on Cpoe Phase 2 Implementation at Prince County Hospital.

Case Study Analysis on CPOE Phase 2 Implementation at Prince County Hospital

1. Overview

According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal, 9,000 - 24,000 Canadians die each year as a result of medical errors (CBC, 2004). A promising approach to address this issue is the migration of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) as a shift from paper-based care activities to computerized order entry (Khanna, 2014). The benefits of implementing a system such as CPOE is to eliminating prescription errors, transcription errors and reducing clinical mistakes. Many hospitals have invested in clinical information systems (CIS), including CPOE; however, many studies found that CIS projects have a very high failure rate (Leviss, 2009). Hence, it is crucial to learn how CIS projects are carried to ensure a plan is successfully implemented and integrated.

In 2013, Health PEI managed to complete CPOE Phase 2 implementation in inpatient units and emergency department at Prince County Hospital (PCH) in Prince Edward Island (PEI) for a span of 18 months (PEI, 2013). A Cerner Millennium code upgrade was inserted into the CPOE project plan. As a result, the project was extended six and one-half months from the initial date. Despite the challenges within the timeline and resource constraints, the CPOE Phase 2 was successfully met on time and on budget. Many benefits for both users and patients were noted regarding the quality of patient care, data quality, and workflow improvements. The purpose of this paper is to examine the critical success factors (CSFs) of CPOE Phase 2 implementation as well as lesson learned.

1. Assessing the CSFs and lesson learned in the CPOE Phase 2 project

1. Why is Health PEI implementing CPOE?

Improving quality of patient care and increasing workflow efficiency were the motivators of the CPOE adoption. CPOE provides opportunities for health care organizations in PEI to enhance collaboration, standardize practice, improve clinical decision support, research and quality monitoring (Health PEI, 2013).

CPOE is being implemented in two phases:

• Phase 1: included replacing paperwork for test orders into the CIS
• Phase 2: comprised of two parts - (1) healthcare practitioners stopped writing orders on paper and began entering orders into the CIS system; and, (2) nursing used CPOE to chart and to provide care for their patients. Prince County hospital was the first hospital in PEI implementing the second phase of CPOE.

1. Was the project successful? Did the project meet budget, timeline, scope quality?

CPOE Phase 2 implementation was successful because it was on time, on budget and met its scope. In addition, the project was able to manage all the risks and issues without delays and had a support team readily available for troubleshooting problems.