Quality Care
University of North Carolina Health Care System (UNC) was named a 2018 HIMSS Davies Enterprise Award recipient for leveraging the value of health information and technology to improve outcomes. The three award-winning use cases cover improving treatment of depression, improving thrombocytopenia care and reducing percutaneous coronary intervention costs.
Case Studies
1. Improving Depression Screening & Treatment
UNC adopted the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle to design and implement depression screening workflows in support of wellness and prevention measures in primary care. A primary care committee structured and established these measures and provided the build team with clinical direction and framework. As a result of this focused effort, UNC’s depression screening rate increased from 7 percent to 76 percent, and treatment rates increased more than 20 percent in a two-year period. Now, more patients with moderate to severe depression are being treated for active symptoms of depression to improve outcomes.
2. Improving Thrombocytopenia Care
To improve the safety and management of patients with suspected or confirmed heparin-induced thrombocytopenia, UNC leveraged a variety of innovative EMR optimizations, along with process improvements resulting in significant direct cost savings related to prevention of adverse drug events.
3. Reducing Percutaneous Coronary Intervention Costs
UNC Medical Center’s interventional cardiologists piloted a UFH (heparin)-first rather than a bivalirudin-first strategy for patients having a Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI) procedure. After completion of this pilot, it was determined that heparin can safely be used in labs with high rates of radial access, and the use of bivalirudin can be reserved for the patients with the greatest bleeding risk. In response, UNC Medical Center launched a cost-cutting initiative to reduce the use of bivalirudin, which costs about 310 times as much as heparin for each administration.
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