In healthcare, it is paramount to be as responsive as possible. Physicians know the importance of being as prompt as they can in dealing with patients' needs to ensure swift and proper treatment. Far too often health IT companies let projects and issues languish as they work on making updates and implementing changes to their templates. At mTuitive, we strive to defy those norms by having a quick turnaround for our users so the care they administer is uninterrupted and they are working with the most up-to-date versions of software and templates as possible. Recently we were able to display that rapid response for our pathology users with a change to a protocol issued by the College of American Pathology (CAP).
On Saturday, May 19, CAP sent out a message stating that the electronic Cancer Checklist (eCC) for the Endometrium needed to be updated. Specifically, two fields required a change in wording from "pelvic nodes" to "para-aortic nodes" to improve clarity and accuracy of the report. While the initial error shouldn't have had an impact on the cancer staging within the Endometrium eCC, it nevertheless could have led to confusion or inaccuracy in reporting.
Synoptic Reporting Specialist Kerri Petzke received that email from CAP about the necessity to make the change, and swiftly revised the eCC for all customers by Monday morning, May 21. Upon investigation, she realized that, due to the way our reports are structured, the incorrect label would not have appeared in any of our customers' reports, and recipients of our synoptic reports would have always seen the correct label. Still, we updated the template because it required changes in the CAP Ckeys, or identifiers, that are used for reporting and interfacing to other systems. In less than two days, Kerri was able to expertly go into mTuitive's system, update the fields, and have it ready to go for all users of that particular eCC. Most importantly, due to Kerri's familiarity with the template and work in preparing the initial updates back in January, she was able to qualify and QA the changes very quickly and thoroughly before deploying the updates. Luckily, due to her preparedness and previous work to make sure the right data was being published correctly, none of mTuitive's customers were affected by the change and could keep on using the eCC as normal. Kerri also sent off an email notifying all potentially affected people of the change so there wouldn't be a loss of continuity of care or concern about inaccuracy of the pathology synoptic.
It can be a small thing to implement semantic changes to templates, but it requires precision of knowledge and familiarity with the reports in order to do it quickly and correctly. Healthcare facilities don't have the luxury of waiting for updates to ensure they are communicating as effectively as possible. Too often, IT companies let these sites languish or simply lack the expertise to handle such revisions with any sort of speed. At mTuitive, we're proud to be able to correct these errors in a timely fashion. It's of the utmost importance to be as responsive as possible, and to take that worry away from our users who instead can rest assured that mTuitive will handle it fast and will handle it right. Turnaround time can be a major factor in administering care — all of us at mTuitive are keenly aware of this and proudly strive to improve at all times.