Case Study: CoxHealth achieves faster diagnoses and streamlined EHR workflows with Cerner's SMART on FHIR

CoxHealth clinicians enhance EHR capabilities, save time with SMART on FHIR

CoxHealth, a Cerner ITWorksSM client serving five hospitals and more than 80 clinics in Springfield, Missouri, sought to address EHR usability problems and improve specialized point‑of‑care workflows beginning in early 2016. Clinicians needed faster, contextual access to patient data and reference tools—especially to help primary care providers manage dermatology cases in a region with few specialists.

CoxHealth embedded SMART on FHIR applications in Cerner Millennium, starting with the VisualDx dermatology reference, allowing apps to pull EHR context without separate logins. The result: faster differential diagnosis (clinicians estimate ~10 seconds saved per patient), strong adoption (200–250 unique providers and 1,200–1,300 launches/month for VisualDx), deployment of three more apps, increased diagnostic confidence, and more time for patient care.

CoxHealth

Louis Krenn

Chief Medical Information Officer