August 3, 2018 - MEDITECH is dedicated to providing quality software that ensures patient safety — and one important aspect of fulfilling this commitment involves our software change prioritization process. Customer feedback revealed education on our internal process would be valued, as well as insight into tools to assist you with managing priority 1 and 2 software changes. Read on for need-to-know details.
During software change prioritization, all newly-identified software changes are vetted through a standardized process to confirm appropriate prioritization and next steps — ensuring MEDITECH delivers the right code, to the right customers, in the right products/releases, in the right time frame. In cases where a potential priority event (PE) is identified — whether it be related to patient safety, healthcare operations, or privacy/security — the issue is escalated internally to our Patient Safety and PE Management team.
The Patient Safety and PE Management team coordinates discussion with experts from Development and Client Services for an in-depth review. Additionally, for software changes involving patient safety or clinical workflow, a MEDITECH physician is always engaged, as well as other clinicians, such as pharmacists and nurses, as needed. These resources collaborate to gain a full understanding of the scope and impact of the issue.
The concern is then prioritized using a simple 1-3 numeric scale based on the potential severity of impact, likelihood to occur, and detectability of the malfunction. Software changes deemed a priority 1 or 2 continue on our PE pathway, following strict guidelines to ensure all impacted customers are notified of the issue, and it is resolved in a timely manner. Priority 1 software changes are considered the most critical as they have the most significant impact on patient safety, healthcare operations, or privacy and security. Priority 2 software changes are considered urgent. In both cases, dedicated resources are assigned to continue the effort to provide a software solution as quickly and safely as possible.
Another aspect of our PE process includes assessing the feasibility of a short-term risk mitigation strategy which can be implemented in the interim, such as the introduction of a rule or editing a particular dictionary setting. In addition, MEDITECH shares our evaluation of the impact of the issue, as well as detailed steps to reproduce the issue.
We strongly encourage those in your organization who are involved in your PE management process to use this information during your organization’s risk assessment. Its purpose is to aid you in making an informed decision around proceeding with expedited delivery or deferring and receiving the resolving code during your next regularly-scheduled update.
A recent customer survey disclosed the importance of each organization having a standardized process in place to review, understand, and address MEDITECH PE notifications. Due to the integrated nature of the EHR, this sometimes requires a collaborative response across various resource pools.
MEDITECH offers a variety of tools to assist with developing this process. We highly recommend you review these tools to ensure your organization is familiar with how to access them and knows how to subscribe, where applicable.
1) Subscribe to our EHR Safety Corner to receive Safety Workflow/Education notifications and/or PE notifications.
2) Use the Priority Event filter in the Release Documentation Search to identify software changes related to patient safety, healthcare operations, and/or privacy and security.
3) Review outstanding tasks flagged as patient safety, including PE tasks, by accessing the Customer Support page and selecting Your Service Issues.
4) Review the Cheat Sheet for Staff Contact Setup and ensure the appropriate staff are designated with the Patient Safety contact type so they are notified of PE tasks and related communications. It is crucial to make certain your organization has a Patient Safety contact in place to receive these important notifications.
Questions or feedback? Interested in being part of our Customer EHR Patient Safety Advisory Board? Let us know via this form.