Government to release IT toolkit for medical practices

If you have a small or medium-sized practice, look for a toolkit in January from the federal agency for Healthcare Research and Quality designed to help you analyze workflow and redesign your practice before, during, and after you implement healthcare information technology (IT).

The University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Center for Quality and Productivity Improvement is preparing the toolkit to help healthcare practitioners and organizations decide when and how to integrate health IT into the clinical workflow between organizations, within a clinic, and within a clinical visit.

A new summary report, “Incorporating Health IT into Workflow Redesign,” released in advance of the toolkit, summarizes existing research and evidence related to the impact of health IT on workflow in outpatient settings. This research will be incorporated into the toolkit, to be titled “Workflow Assessment for Health IT.”