CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 · Appl Clin Inform 2021; 12(05): 1041-1048
DOI: 10.1055/s-0041-1739195
Special Section on Workflow Automation

Workflow Automation for a Virtual Hypertension Management Program

William J. Gordon
1   Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
2   Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Alexander J. Blood
1   Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Kira Chaney
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Eugene Clark
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Corey Glynn
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Remlee Green
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
John St. Laurent
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Charlotte Mailly
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Marian McPartlin
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Shawn Murphy
2   Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
4   Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Hunter Nichols
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Michael Oates
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Samantha Subramaniam
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Matthew Varugheese
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Kavishwar Wagholikar
2   Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
4   Department of Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Samuel Aronson*
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
,
Benjamin M. Scirica*
1   Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
2   Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
3   Mass General Brigham, Boston, Massachusetts, United States
› Author Affiliations

Abstract

Objectives Hypertension is a modifiable risk factor for numerous comorbidities and treating hypertension can greatly improve health outcomes. We sought to increase the efficiency of a virtual hypertension management program through workflow automation processes.

Methods We developed a customer relationship management (CRM) solution at our institution for the purpose of improving processes and workflow for a virtual hypertension management program and describe here the development, implementation, and initial experience of this CRM system.

Results Notable system features include task automation, patient data capture, multi-channel communication, integration with our electronic health record (EHR), and device integration (for blood pressure cuffs). In the five stages of our program (intake and eligibility screening, enrollment, device configuration/setup, medication titration, and maintenance), we describe some of the key process improvements and workflow automations that are enabled using our CRM platform, like automatic reminders to capture blood pressure data and present these data to our clinical team when ready for clinical decision making. We also describe key limitations of CRM, like balancing out-of-the-box functionality with development flexibility. Among our first group of referred patients, 76% (39/51) preferred email as their communication method, 26/51 (51%) were able to enroll electronically, and 63% of those enrolled (32/51) were able to transmit blood pressure data without phone support.

Conclusion A CRM platform could improve clinical processes through multiple pathways, including workflow automation, multi-channel communication, and device integration. Future work will examine the operational improvements of this health information technology solution as well as assess clinical outcomes.

Protection of Human and Animal Subjects

This work is a quality improvement project at Mass General Brigham whose sole purpose is quality measurement and thus under institution guidelines the work was not reviewed by the Mass General Brigham Human Research Committee.


* These authors contributed equally to this manuscript.




Publication History

Received: 03 June 2021

Accepted: 23 September 2021

Article published online:
10 November 2021

© 2021. The Author(s). This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonDerivative-NonCommercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit. Contents may not be used for commercial purposes, or adapted, remixed, transformed or built upon. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)

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