Produce your own scannable forms
Flexibility is the advantage of OPIII
The path of quality improvement sometimes leads in unexpected directions - and your information technology needs to be able to withstand the ride. You discover a weakness in your processes, and now you want to know more. You may want to add questions to your surveys or change parameters on your database.
That flexibility is the selling point of Outcomes Partner III (OPIII), a new version of software developed by Velocity Healthcare Informatics, a Minneapolis-based division of Object Products. With this software, you can create scannable forms with any questions that have a numerical range or a list of multiple choices. The database and reporting functions are automatically updated to match the forms.
The previous version of the software encompassed numerous standard outcomes and satisfaction surveys, but any changes in forms or database parameters required the work of a programmer.
"Users are able to alter [the forms and database] to meet their needs without spending additional dollars," says James McDonnell, Velocity national sales manager.
Dean Medical Center in Madison, WI, recently switched to the latest version of Outcomes Partner and is already using it to develop data collection tools for a diabetes project and an immunization database for the clinic's travel services bureau.
"Because [the software] is based on an object-oriented database, I can make changes to the questionnaire within a matter of minutes," says John Martin, PhD, a psychologist who is director of clinical information development at Dean and a senior clinical consultant at Velocity. "It allows us a flexibility we've wanted and really haven't had the opportunity to have."
In fact, Velocity president and CEO Ellen B. White, RN, MBA, recalls her own frustrations when she worked at Dean Medical Center and wanted to change the patient registration system to provide some pertinent information. It couldn't be done. "For health care to evolve to be more patient-oriented, more provider useful, not to mention to provide clinical decision support, you have to be flexible," she says.
With OPIII, outcomes management software becomes a tool in the design of quality improvement projects, says Martin. "The ease with which we've been able to develop the question sets has shortened the overall timing of the [QI] cycle," he says. "Instead of looking at a project over a course of a year or more, we're looking at a project over several months, where it makes sense clinically."
Martin also notes that the flexibility can lead to greater physician support of outcomes management. "One of the things we've learned is that when you introduce a questionnaire, everyone has a better way to ask a question," he says. "If you don't allow some of that, you lose buy-in. Having the flexibility to do it increases buy-in."
Yet Martin also cautions physicians not to change certain questions that are part of standard surveys, such as the SF-36 health status questionnaire. "If you change a standard question, you lose the validity and reliability that had been associated with that," he says. You also lose the use of scoring scales and norms, he notes.
OPIII is part of a data system that will integrate outcomes with credentialing, case management, billing, scheduling, and practice management. The Organic Clinic, which will be available in 1999, will incorporate the various modules and will use the "organic architecture" that provides the flexibility in OPIII.
OPIII is priced according to the number of users. It requires a client-server system, but Object Products hopes to soon enable subscribers to access a server in Minneapolis through an Internet connection.
[Editor's note: For more information on Outcomes Partner III, contact James McDonnell, national sales manager, Velocity Healthcare Informatics, 8441 Wayzata Boulevard, Suite 105, Minneapolis, MN 55426. Telephone: (800) 844-5648, ext. 40. Fax: (612) 797-9993. E-mail: [email protected]. World Wide Web: http://www.velocity.com.]
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