DOC Newsletter: March 2012

1. Summary from Town Hall March is National Social Work Month! Social Work Services at the DOC not only impact the mental health of patients, but their physical health as well.  In addition to assisting with concrete needs such as medication, housing and transportation, mental health therapy has helped patients cut down on alcohol use, stabilizing the INR; take medication regularly, reducing the A1C; and decreased ED visits for symptoms related to panic attacks, saving thousands of dollars in tests and other medical costs.  So please go thank Jan for all her hard work and give her a hug! (Limit 1 hug per resident per day). Get Out of My ER! Did you know Alisa Hassinger, our Med/Psych PA extraordinaire manages a cohort of Medicaid “high utilizers”, i.e. patients who frequent the ED and who have co-morbid mental health and substance use disorders. With her skills and same day access and home visits, she was able to reduce ED visits from 270 to 211, as well as reducing hospitalizations from 10 to 7 in her cohort over a 4 month time period. Shows that you can make a difference with improved access to an outpatient provider and highly skilled staff. Way to go Alisa! DOC Newsletter: March 2012 Clinic Workflow Improvement You may have seen residents and staff clutching orange sheets of paper in clinic last week. This was actually part of Dr. Adia Ross’ study to prepare the DOC for implementation of Maestro Care. We were tracking the current state of DOC workflow to best optimize workflow when our world is turned upside down by EPIC, which will include computerized order entry and electronic medical records. Stay tuned for new projects and simulations as they roll out over the next few months. If you are interested in helping improve the workflow with EPIC, please contact Adia or Dr. Bowlby to help. Duke ExitCare On-Call Have you ever wanted to print a handout or medication information for a patient at the end of your visit? What if they only read Haitian Creole? Or Croatian! This new resource provides continually updated materials, including illustrations, that assist providers and clinicians with educating patients about their associated diagnosis, procedures, treatments and medications. http://duke.exitcareoncall.com/ Go to the site above, type in the diagnosis, keyword or medication name into the text box. Available Languages: · Croatian, French, Spanish, Haitian Creole, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Filipino, and Vietnamese Maestro Care: the Sequel Can we say enough about Maestro Care? Apparently not! Our sights are set on July 18th, which is when our own DOC will have its world rocked with a complete electronic medical record and CPOE. The Duke Intranet ‘What’s new’ has a great Maestro Care link to help you make sure you don’t miss a beat—practice will keep your practice on key. If you have prior Epic experience, you still need to complete the training again, but alas, you can be a champion for change and help lead the way! Find Dr Bowlby if you want to be a point person to help orient others when the time comes. Strive for Five We know everyone is doing a great job at trying to meet and exceed patient expectations. The Bean Counters looking at our clinic want to see patients rate us 5 out of 5 in all areas. We need to tell patients that a 4 means we are doing poorly and that we’d love to talk about how we can make their clinic experience better. Or we can say that our clinic goes to 11. Greenblatt’sCorner QI, Innovation, Mental Health, Oh my! We are looking for 4 partnerships to introduce an evidence-based strategy to both screen for and manage patients with major depression. We will have support from Sarah Rivelli and Marvin Swartz in Psychiatry. This will be the first depression management algorithm to be implemented in a resident clinic. We need 4 partnerships with SAR's who are willing to serve as leaders for their individual partnerships. Contact Dr. Greenblatt to learn more. Reminders Clinic starts at 8:30AM , yes your patients are here and waiting to be seen! Residents who show up after 8:30 will have to demonstrate the etymology of diabetes mellitus. PT at the DOC: now 3 days a week! Just write “PT at DOC” on your encounter form, simple! Dr. Westman’s Weight loss clinic is now available for appointments every weekday at the DOC. Please mark on your daily schedule which patients are within your Practice Partnership and which are not, place in the box on Dr. Bowlby’s door. Tasking is alive and well. Be sure to check yours 2-3x per week so you stay that way too, buster.