Briefly describe your role, your team, and your workplace.
I serve as our quality physician lead for our market, our regional primary care medical director, but I am also a full time family physician in a rural outpatient clinic. We see all ages from birth to geriatrics.
What is your favorite part of the huddle tool?
It’s a quick visual reminder of the high value missing quality items from my patients chart. It may mean that a patient needs it ordered or given today, or simply that I need a record release. Sometimes it’s something that can be done quickly like a mammogram order even if the patient is there for something else, so I am better optimizing ALL visits.
What challenges has the huddle solved for you and/or your team?
Having my entire team’s ability to access it regardless of who might be working with me that day has been helpful. No one has to hunt in different corners of the chart to tell if something is up to date or not.
How does the huddle help your team work together?
Our team can go ahead and anticipate certain needs such as giving the flu vaccine or prepping the in office A1C while the patient is waiting on the provider. It helps to save time.
Are there any other benefits of the tool you’d like to mention?
We have also noticed opportunities in how we label. A item such as a colonoscopy may be in the chart but we aren’t getting credit for it because it’s still showing as an open care gap on the huddle tool. It’s a great learning opportunity on how we should be loading items into the chart so that we get full credit and save time on later chart documentation.
