EMERGENCY DISEASE RESPONSE

At the pandemic’s onset, the VHA urgently needed an emergency disease response. Leadership had to coordinate communication across clinics and hospitals. They also had to implement new COVID-19 policies and procedures quickly. To support this effort, J P Systems helped define COVID-19 workflows for VHA clinicians. As a result, we helped standardize patient care processes across VA facilities, each with unique levels of complexity. VA’s Clinical Informatics and Data Management Office (CIDMO), in collaboration with EMCC and VHA clinicians, developed ten baseline COVID-19 clinical workflows.

These workflows enabled rapid and consistent patient care from outreach to discharge and follow-up. They included: End-to-End Patient Process, Virtual Care Pre-Arrival, In-Person Pre-Arrival, Emergency Department, Inpatient, ICU, Outpatient, Community Care, Long Term Care, and Virtual Care Follow-Up. Each workflow outlined data standard requirements and informed the use of clinical decision support and informatics tools. They also highlighted gaps in existing tools.

In addition, J P Systems updated the VHA’s legacy EHR to include diagnosis codes for COVID-19. Since clinical terminologies evolve with new diseases and drugs, our Agile Clinical Terminology Team responded quickly. We consistently adapt to changing Federal Health IT demands across complex healthcare systems. Furthermore, we regularly process New Term Rapid Turnaround (NTRT) requests to support clinicians promptly. Through this process, we enhance international reference terminologies by adding new clinical concepts and terms.