Case Study: Adventist HealthCare achieves more than 18 minutes saved per patient in the EHR with Cerner

Adventist HealthCare nurses improve chart documentation, review time with clinical documentation performance improvement project

Adventist HealthCare, a Gaithersburg, Maryland health system, faced nurse dissatisfaction with its electronic health record (EHR) driven by complex workflows, poor internal communications and excessive time spent documenting and reviewing charts that reduced bedside patient care.

Partnering with Cerner on a Clinical Documentation Performance Improvement (CDPI) project, Adventist created a system-wide steering committee, adopted Cerner Model Experience standards, standardized quarterly releases, provided training, and used near real-time Cerner Advance efficiency data to guide changes. From November 2015 to March 2017, documentation time fell by 2:05 and chart review by 4:02 per patient per shift, while overall active EHR time per patient dropped from 29:50 to 11:03 (>18 minutes); a Q1 2017 survey showed over half of nurses saw improvements and a weighted satisfaction score of 3.71/4, above the 3.5 target.

Adventist HealthCare

Susan Glover

Senior Vice President and Chief Quality Officer