LITS Annual Report: Achieving Excellence
LITS underwent several instances of foundational growth and procedural development in FY16, allowing the division to solidify its core strengths. Major upgrades and infrastructure improvements were key elements of this growth.
Clinical Trials Registry Web site
The LITS team, in partnership with faculty and leadership, have developed an interactive clinical trials registry website to present all clinical trials performed by Emory faculty. The site helps facilitate making a connection between people seeking to participate in research and those conducting clinical trials. The site has almost 1000 clinical trials searchable across the site as well as being organized into nine categories. The completion of this site contributed to the strategic goals of Emory Healthcare and Emory School of Medicine.
Customer Satisfaction Survey
LITS Customer Services had a requirement to determine the current levels of customer satisfaction across their customer base. They worked with GBS to validate an approach to measure customer satisfaction using a standard metric called Net Promoter Score (NPS), which rates an organization based on how likely individuals are to recommend services to a co-worker, friend, etc. The NPS survey was conducted in August with Institutional Research and as a result, the team has put together FY17 projects aimed at improving the customer experience across all groups. Upon completion, targeted for Summer 2017, they will conduct the same survey again and measure the improvement. This will be an ongoing cycle with the goal of providing and maintaining a world-class customer support organization.
HDOT Redesign
Holocaust Denial on Trial (HDOT.org), a website founded by Emory University Professor Deborah Lipstadt to refute the misleading claims of Holocaust deniers, was redesigned and relaunched by ECDS’ digital projects coordinator. A team of eight Emory graduate students in the ECDS internship program divided the lengthy transcripts into short, semantic groupings so users can more easily browse them by names and topic. ECDS worked with the Tam Institute for Jewish Studies to convert pages of trial documents, judgments, appeals, and transcripts into a format that is web friendly, easily navigable, and furthers the goals of the website to be a place for researchers and the interested public alike to find quality resources combating Holocaust denial.
Care Team Optimization
During FY15-16, EHC-IS continued to enhance the electronic medical record to make it easier for clinicians to leverage technology in their delivery of high quality patient care. After implementing new tools, like the 37 specialty workflow pages, it is important to continue to devote resources to updating and refining the tools. EHC-IS made over 300 tweaks to these workflow pages in order to make them more efficient for clinicians.
EHC-IS also focused on developing tools that enable care team members to practice at the top of their licenses. There are many advanced care practitioners (nurse practitioners and physician assistants) within the Emory system, and EHC-IS completed a project that enables practitioners to directly receive the test results that they order rather than having the test results route to the attending physicians’ inboxes. This enables them to function more independently in the care of their patients.
ICD10 Conversion
The conversion to ICD10 was compared in its magnitude to the conversion to Y2K, given its national go live date, the depth of the changes required, and the dependency on all parts of the billing cycle to those ahead and down the chain to “get it right.” And similar to Y2K, Emory Healthcare experienced the conversion to ICD-10 on October 1, 2015, with few issues and little press. The preparations for ICD-10 covered more than 4 years, as the government moved the compliance date twice before the final passage.
Since the conversion, and as the fiscal year ended, Emory Hospitals have seen an improvement in the case mix index across the board, as well as an overall reduction in denials. Emory Hospitals finished the year with improved days in accounts receivables at all facilities, while collecting 100% of net revenue (both strong indicators of a stable billing cycle).
Library Service Center
The state-of-the-art Library Service Center (LSC) was built as a collaboration between Emory and Georgia Tech. Currently the facility holds 1.6 million volume equivalents. The climate-controlled 55,000-square-foot facility will preserve materials for future generations and provide a shared collection of materials available to faculty, staff and students at both campuses, thus expanding access to a broad range of resources and freeing up campus spaces. The two institutions share the cost of running the facility. Accelerated ingest completed in August 2016 and regular operations are now in place. Six staff provide services at the LSC for both Georgia Tech and Emory.
Library Master Plan
The Libraries completed a year-long master planning process to create a comprehensive program for the Libraries' facilities. The plan is an effort to optimize the space and accommodate the needs of all library patrons. Future enhancements include increased quiet study space, renovated classrooms, the development of a scholars' commons for faculty and graduate student services, graduate studios, and increased exhibition and multipurpose space for the Robert W. Woodruff Library, the Woodruff Health Sciences Center Library, and Cox Hall. Planning for phase one of the project is underway with hopes of addressing a portion of the Woodruff Library 1st floor and areas within the WHSCL. Our ability to reutilize space was made possible in part due to the completion of the Library Service Center, which now provides optimum space for the preservation of resources. The Master Plan is a multi-phase project that will be implemented over the next several years.
"I am very pleased with the relaunch of HDOT. We have made major strides in revamping, not just the technological aspects of HDOT, but the content as well. HDOT is a unique resource combining documentary material from the legal action brought against me with the most recent and cutting edge research. The collaboration with ECDS has been exceptionally fruitful. They understand the particular details of how to construct a site such as this and to ensure that it is accessible to visitors to the site."
Dr. Deborah Lipstadt, Emory Professor of Religion