P3.073: Increasing Provider Engagement in Technology to Bridge the Information Gap Between Electronic Medical Records and the State Public Children’s Services Agency

Background: Children living in foster care are considered a special health care needs group due to the increased prevalence of physical, mental, and developmental disorders. Providing medical care to children in out-of-home care is made more difficult by barriers in communication between the child services agency and the medical system. Additionally, changes in placement cause additional fragmentation of care. New technology exists to bridge the information gap between the provider’s Electronic Medical Record (EMR) and the State Public Children’s Services Agency’s case management system, providing an updated caseworker, placement, and trauma history. Implementation of new tools into established, busy hospital workflows is challenging. The objective of this project is to apply strategies to increase the use of Cordata Identity within a pediatric hospital setting, thus working to decrease known barriers and fragmentation of medical care for children living in out-of-home care.

Methods: This ongoing initiative has been conducted over 12 months at a free-standing pediatric urban hospital. Process measures include the number of new users who have completed training and utilized Cordata Identity within the hospital system. Interventions occurred within two stages: first, to increase knowledge of the program to a greater hospital audience, and second, to streamline training and use within processes already embedded within the hospital. Targeted educational sessions were provided separately to 1) pediatric and family practice residents, 2) employees of the Revenue Cycle (billing) department, 3) hospital social workers, and 4) care coordinators. In process is building a link within Epic for quick, seamless access and user training embedded within the hospital-wide training program, which is used for new employee orientation and annual medical education.

Results: Following the implementation of these interventions, the number of new users increased from 8 to 25 within the hospital system, a 212.5% increase. At baseline, although the hospital had access to Cordata Identity, knowledge of the system was limited to the foster care clinic. The greatest number of new users were care coordinators, social workers, and the Revenue Cycle department. As this project is still ongoing, insufficient time has elapsed to see a resultant increase amongst other users.

Conclusion: This ongoing project successfully increased the use of Cordata Identity, an information-sharing platform that bridges the informational gap between the EMR and the database of the State Public Children’s Services Agency. This information-sharing platform has been shown to increase information available to health care providers, reduce time allocated to needed information gathering, and ensure appropriate recovery of costs for health care services. Integration of the use of a new information sharing platform within a busy hospital system requires both increased knowledge of the system and attention to minimizing barriers to its use.