An implementation guide to improve accuracy and efficiency for outpatient referrals using EHR functionality

Author's Biography

Archana S. Shinde is a senior health systems engineer in the Department of Management Engineering & Internal Consulting at Mayo Clinic. She has a Bachelor of Dental Surgery from Goa Dental College and Hospital, in India, and a Master of Healthcare Administration from the University of Minnesota, USA. She has 16 years of healthcare exposure with experience in systems engineering, consulting, process improvement, change management and Epic EHR–RCM implementation. She has worked on several large implementation projects that have involved thousands of employees across multiple sites at Mayo Clinic. She is an instructor of healthcare systems engineering, awarded in recognition of her scholarly activities for Mayo Clinic, and has a Prosci Change Management Practitioner certification.

Suzanne Nelson MS, is a senior health systems engineer in the Department of Management Engineering and Internal Consulting (ME&IC) at Mayo Clinic. She has 22 years of experience in healthcare. She has supported revenue cycle and clinical workflow design and system requirement efforts, as well as IT implementations and upgrades. She has successfully co-led the Rochester change management efforts for the largest single-system go-live transition in the history of Mayo Clinic for more than 26,000 employees. Suzanne holds a bachelor’s of business administration and management as well as a master’s of science in project management. She is certified in EpicCare Ambulatory and CPHIMS and is a certified Prosci change management practitioner.

Shannon M. Counselman , MBA, has been with Mayo Clinic for 12 years and is a director of orders services in Electronic Health Record Administrative Services. Most of her years at Mayo Clinic have been spent on the electronic health record implementation teams for scheduling and outpatient orders systems. Shannon has a bachelor of science degree in industrial engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison and a master of business administration degree from Augsburg University. She has assisted with project planning, functional requirement identification, workflow design and communication between end users and systems developers for both scheduling and outpatient orders.

Brian A. Crum , MD, is a neurologist at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, and has been active in clinical practice for 20 years. He completed his medical education at Oregon Health Sciences University and residency and fellowship at Mayo Clinic. He specialises in neuromuscular diseases (mainly myasthenia gravis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and works in the electromyography laboratory. He is involved in clinical research and trainee and continuing medical education and is Associate Professor at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. He has been the Medical Director of the Enterprise (all Mayo Clinic) Office of Access Management for 10 years; this office is intimately involved in outpatient access for patient appointments from intake of appointment requests, scheduling and communication and education of patients about appointments, as well as governing the operations, tools and analytics around outpatient scheduling and access. He serves as a leader on multiple institutional oversight committees.

William C. Mundell , MD, is a physician consultant at Mayo Clinic, Rochester. He completed his medical education from the University of Minnesota and an Internal Medicine residency in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Dr Mundell has had practice and leadership roles in both community and academic settings. He has led numerous practice improvement projects, including the redesign of both the inpatient and outpatient environments, facilities design projects and implementation of electronic medical record systems. These efforts have focused on improving the delivery of patient care. He is board certified in Internal Medicine and Clinical Informatics and holds the position of Assistant Professor of Medicine in the College of Medicine, Mayo Clinic.