In pandemic planning, having a source of truth and standardized approaches are essential to coordinated and efficient responses in health care. Clinical order sets provide both. They serve as a common platform for clinical decisions made at the point of care and they compile the best evidence and best practice in one place. Order sets ensure patient safety and reduce unwarranted variation in practice, but they take time to build.
Rewind to last month where a clinical order set for COVID-19 was developed from start to finish in 10 days! Dr. Jean Maskey, SI Hospitalist, co-lead on the project said, “This was a BIG success for the team to complete this order set from Start to Finish so quickly, especially in this unprecedented time of increased anxiety, social isolation and new workflows in anticipation of patients with this new and potentially life threatening condition. Good thing we had established solid relationships between clinicians and the Order Set team, due to our work done together over the past year, giving us both practice working with each other, and knowledge of the format and process, as that really helped!”
Developing a COVID-19 Clinical Order Set required bringing together a group of agile, efficient and dedicated medical staff and administrators. Alison Steinbart (Medication Safety Consultant) worked tirelessly to lead and pull it all together. Below is a list of contributors who put time and energy into this important work. Dr. David Cook, co-lead and SI Hospitalist said, “There were many more people giving input than the folks listed below - I think everyone should get a shout out for giving time when they were quite busy.”
The rapid development of the Covid-19 order set by the Island Health team has drawn attention at provincial tables and we look forward to scaling up the work and sharing it with other health partners.
Funding for the Order Set Optimization- Hospitalists was co-led by Drs. Cook and Maskey (SI Hospitalists) with Kerry Morrison and Marko Peljhan as Sponsors. The physician engagement for the COVID-19 order set and the larger Clinical Order Set was funded by the Specialist Services Committee, the South Island MSA through facility Engagement, Shared Care Committee, and General Practice Services Committees (together, the Joint Collaborative Committees of Doctors of BC) through the 2019/2020 Health System Redesign (HSR) Initiative.
The goal of HSR funding is to ensure that physicians are engaged and have the have the opportunity to participate in planning, decision making and implementation of new or revised health services, in a manner that contributes to alignment across the health system, and reflects the application of the IHI Triple Aim Improvement Framework. For Island Health, this means projects must have clear alignment with Island Health strategic priorities as outlined in the 2019-2022 Multi-Year Plan.
Learn more about clinical order set development on the South Island Medical Staff Association website.
Kudos to the physicians and informatics team for pivoting so nimbly on this important work!
- Order Sets: Alison Steinbart
- Infectious Disease: Eric Partlow, Divya Virmani, Wayne Ghesquire, John Galbraith, Alistair Teale, Siobhan Holland
- Internal Medicine: Brian McArdle, Willie Pewarchuk
- Hospitalist: David Cook, Jean Maskey, Matthew Moher, Stephanie Brown, Karen McIntyre, Kelly Gallins, Margie Bester, Rikus DeLange, Chloe Lemire-Elmore, Lara Dickinson
- Emergency: Tracey Stephenson, Jeff Eisen, Drew Digney, Greg Culp, Grant Laxdal, Andrew Schissler
- Lab Medicine: Michael Chen, Pamela Kibsey
- ICU: Omar Ahmad
- Pharmacy: Jolanta Piszczek, Nadia McTaggart, Rich Wanbon, Dean Kolodziejczyk
- Palliative: Robin Love, Christine Jones, Della Roberts
- Primary Care: Graham Blackburn
- Respirology: Kewan Aboulhosn
- Lindsay Cosgrave and Shauna Donaldson, Joni McManus, Pam Krowec, Jill Sims and HueyLim Yew - Thank you!