Rediscovering the Joy of Clinical Abstraction

The holiday lights are twinkling, the presents are wrapped, and the egg nog is flowing...but you’re stuck at your desk stressing about fourth quarter data. That was when Amy Sims, a clinical quality data abstractor for Covenant Health, knew something had to change. “We were about to submit our fourth quarter data when our software vendor decided to run an update,” she grimaces. “The next thing I knew all of our abstracted data was gone. It was crazy. We had one week to get everything fixed. I had to cancel my entire Christmas vacation.”It’s an extreme example, but one that symbolizes the constant software battles that so many clinical abstractors fight every day. For Sims, relief finally came in the form of Medisolv. “Switching to Medisolv—it was just night and day. It was completely different,” she recalls.“The minute we touched it, it was apparent that it was very good.”

A Solution That Feels Like Second Nature

Eager to avoid another data crisis, Sims and her team made it clear that they wanted to make the switch very quickly. Medisolv responded. Within days, CovenantHealth had a dedicated Medisolv Quality Advisor on-site to set up and train the entire clinical abstraction team on the Medisolv platform. The tool immediately began to feel like second nature to Sims. “Medisolv has a lock on ease of use,” Sims says. “It’s laid out very well. You can clearly see what you need to do, what you haven’t done, and what’s in progress. Our Quality Advisor showed us many thoughtful features—like all the different ways you can sort [your dashboard]. I like to sort mine by the measures, and then sort by what I haven’t done.

“I know it sounds silly, but the way the manual is loaded is so user friendly,” she adds. “Medisolv only loads exactly what you need from the manual. If you click on Severe Sepsis Criteria, that’s all you’ll get. In other solutions, you click on something and end up in the appendices. That can be really time consuming.”She also doesn’t lose sleep over system reliability or submission deadlines anymore. “I know that when July 1 hits, I won’t have to worry about if things are updating. Medisolv is always on top of it, and every update is seamless,” she says. “They’re very easy to work with on submissions. I like that they give us so much time. We’re not rushed.”

You’ve Got a Friend in Medisolv

While Sims was impressed by Medisolv’s “night and day” ease of use, she was equally impressed with fundamental cultural difference she felt in terms of Medisolv’s approach to customer service. “With other software vendors, the attitude is ‘You’ve drive it off the lot, it’s yours now.’ Getting the help you need is such a process,” she points out. “But with Medisolv, it feels very personal. I can contact my Quality Advisor and get an answer back immediately. Honestly, sometimes it’s only10 or 20 minutes before they’re emailing me back asking how they can help. You can tell they hold themselves to a higher standard.”

Find A Partner Who Lets You Love Your Job

Now that Sims has the tools and support she needs, she also has the time to truly embrace her role in driving quality improvement forward. “We get calls all the time from facilities: ‘Do you have January and February done? Where are you on the March data?’” she says. “So, we have started sitting down with our quality leaders to show them how we abstract. It’s really helpful for them to see what we’re doing as clinical abstractors so that they can meet their measures. “These meetings are a nice reminder that we’re part of something bigger than just staring at a computer,” she adds.“By giving others the data they need, we’re improving patient care and helping to make our hospital the hospital that people want to come to.I just love what I do."