Emanate Health (Covina, CA) recently partnered with MEDITECH Professional Services to develop disease investigation and contact tracing dashboards in their MEDITECH Expanse Electronic Health Record (EHR). The project, which identifies patients and staff at high risk for COVID-19 due to inpatient exposure, showed immediate results after just a three-month development and implementation.
“There is plenty of evidence to show that one of the keys to slowing down the spread of coronavirus is contact tracing and identifying people who may have been exposed to an infected person,” said Loucine Kasparian, Infectious Disease Director, Emanate Health. “As a result, Emanate Health implemented plans to safely identify staff who have come into contact with a patient who has tested positive for the virus. The data helps clinical operations know where transmissions are happening within our three hospitals. This unique contact tracing program was specifically developed for our EHR and how we work here at Emanate Health, helping us achieve some promising outcomes.”
This fall, Emanate Health identified the need for internal contact tracing and reached out to MEDITECH’s Professional Services team for support. They pulled a wide range of information including lists of cohorts during the hospital stay, staff that cared for the COVID-19 positive patient, staff who worked in the high-risk areas, and staff-to-staff contacts.
“The team leveraged the flexibility of the Expanse Business and Clinical Analytics solution to collect this information and establish the new dashboards,” said MEDITECH Executive Vice President Hoda Sayed-Friel.
Previously, the hospital’s infection control team had to spend time manually checking work logs and meeting with employees to identify possible exposures. The dashboards replaced these time-consuming and unreliable processes with just a one-button click to secure information from the internal system as well as outside data sources.
The dashboards are also integrated with Emanate Health’s HIPAA audit log (which tracks staff interaction with patients) as well as with their time card vendor, which monitors time cards indicating when an employee was working at the same time patients or staff were infected. This integration enables Emanate Health to identify a more accurate timeline for the person’s infection and contact to others — resulting in more efficient, accurate, and comprehensive tracking.
“This is the most recent example of how we have been able to leverage our EHR technology to address the challenges of COVID-19,” said Dan Nash, CIO, Emanate Health. “We have also used Expanse to track patients, monitor supplies, manage beds and ventilators, and create new screening protocols for the UK strain. As a result, we are reducing virus exposure and increasing our efficiency, as well as evolving to meet each new obstacle.”
This groundbreaking initiative has had an immediate impact on the organization. Since its launch, the dashboard has enabled Emanate Health to contact trace potential exposure cases, initiate preventative measures, and reduce subsequent exposures to patients and staff.
“We are pleased to support our customers in meeting the unique and evolving challenges of COVID-19,” said Sayed-Friel. “This project is a meaningful example of how your EHR can be used as a base to build powerful analytical tools tailored to an organization’s specific needs. Emanate Health’s efforts will have a direct impact on the wellbeing of their patients, staff, and community.”
Emanate Health employs more than 3,000 employees and nearly 1,000 physicians across their 16 locations — including three acute care hospitals, clinics, and physician offices. The three hospital campuses (totaling 600+ beds) include Emanate Health Inter-Community and Emanate Health Queen of the Valley in West Covina, and Emanate Health Foothill Presbyterian in Glendora.
