MHA FPX 5016 Assessment 3 Health Information Improvement Implementation Proposal

Health Information Improvement Implementation Proposal

This initiative aims to increase clinical efficiency, improve patient outcomes, and modernize the Epic electronic health record (EHR) system at Independence Medical Center. They plan to address the limitations and challenges of workflow, such as limited access, social determinants of health (SDOH) integration, and language services. To overcome these challenges, we will upgrade the existing system and modernize the use of the Epic application within clinical workflows af Integrating culture-responsive design features and tools to clinical decision support (Alharbi, 2025), integrating Epic and clinical partners will address development barriers and support the optimization of clinical efficiency and the improvement of patient outcomes. It will also address the challenges of inadequate SDOH integration, social determinants of health, language services, workflow, and clinician access. Improving these areas will align Independence Medical Center with the national initiatives for value-based care and equity in healthcare and will enhance the Center’s commitment to providing care that is safe, high-quality, and inclusive across all of its service lines.

Background

Independence Medical Center utilizes the Epic EHR to optimize care coordination across all divisions of the center, including primary care, behavioral health, lab, radiology, and telehealth. This system has allowed Independence Medical Center to manage care coordination across its divisions, the rapid access of patient data, and the reduction of medication errors and other administrative tasks such as electronic charting, e-prescribing, clinical decision support, and patient portals (Alharbi, 2025). The system is designed in a modular style, allowing for customization to support different clinical specialties. The built-in analytics allow for population health and quality improvement initiatives. While these are the strengths of the system, it has its fair share of challenges. Clinicians tend to report poor experiences with the system, especially in behavioral health care, since the documentation templates do not capture mental health processes. The inability to integrate care is due to a lack of interoperability, where community partners operate systems outside Epic. The lack of inbuilt social determinants of health screening tools and adequate support for multilingual patients is detrimental to service delivery to diverse populations.

Project Objectives

The primary goal for this project is to configure Epic EHR at Independence Medical Center to provide connected, smart, and fair care to fulfill the totality of the patient’s care needs. This project will examine the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven tools and techniques to address the social, behavioral, and environmental risks to advance personalized care. Also, it seeks to improve the data flow by developing FHIR-based interfaces to the regional network of clinics and healthcare systems. This will help improve the continuity of care. The patient portal will be redesigned to improve access by making it multilingual and to improve compliance with WCAG 2.1 standards to help provide equitable care to all patient demographics (Tabari et al., 2024).

Another objective of this project is to reduce clinician burnout and the administrative burden by using voice-enabled documentation and automating workflows. We hope that Epic will improve user interfaces for real-time role documentation. Usability, satisfaction, and adoption of interfaces by clinicians will be significantly increased. All these enhancements will enable Independence Medical Center to provide better service to adapt to emerging regulatory standards, prepare to manage the performance of quality metrics, and become a more patient-centered care service.

Scope of the Project

This program enhances the three core elements at Independence Medical Center, which include the Clinical Documentation and Clinical Decision Support System, the MyChart patient portal, and the interoperability framework supported by Care Everywhere and FHIR-based APIs. Behavioral Health and Adult Acute Care units will be the first to implement the program, while other units within the organization will implement it later. Since Epic will make modifications using their existing infrastructure, (Chishtie et al., 2023) describes it as a rapid, modular solution as opposed to a complete overhaul of the existing EHR. Implementation will be supported by training, change management, and feedback to facilitate adoption as part of the plan. The inter-departmental collaboration of IT and CI Specialists, DEI leaders, and frontline clinicians will establish a reality-based system, ensuring the informed adoption of clinical procedures. Independence Medical Center may use vetted third-party vendors for the AI functionality and language accessibility features to deliver seamlessly integrated services at no additional cost within the resources offered by Epic.

Description of Current Issues

Independence Medical Center has three significant problems related to the implementation of Epic EHR. Tools provided with the Epic EHR offer limited clinical decision support. Epic EHR tools do not feature the social, environmental, or cultural aspects of the patient. This limits clinicians’ ability to address social health determinants, exacerbating the outcomes of social determinants of health for the underserved. Novilla et al. (2023, p. 213). The second issue is that Epic EHR continues to have gaps pertaining to interoperability with small community clinics and behavioral health provider clinics that are not in the Epic network. Consequently, this results in fragmented patient data and increased delays in the provision of care. Third, the patient portal, which is primarily in English and has limited options, worsens the interaction of non-English speaking patients and patients with disabilities, in addition to the dissatisfaction and decreased use of the patient portal. Furthermore, clinicians experience increased burnout because of numerous documentation requirements and the extended time it takes to complete a workflow due to the use of general templates that do not align with the unique needs of a given specialty, further reducing the adoption of the system and increasing burnout among clinicians.

Proposed Improvements

To tackle the challenges mentioned above, Independence Medical Center provides three evidence-based suggestions to improve its use of the Epic EHR system. First, Elhaddad and Hamam (2024) introduce an AI-based Clinical Decision Support System. This application aims to address a gap by focusing on the social determinants of health (e.g., food insecurity, housing insecurity) when making time-sensitive clinical recommendations. Behavioral health clinicians will be engaged to help design and build clinical tools to address and fulfill the requirements of clinicians to inform and adjust their decisions. The second suggestion expands the use of FHIR-based interoperability and participation in the local health information exchange to allow the sharing of clinical records with other public health care providers (community clinics and pharmacy services), improving the timeliness and quality of health care data in EHRs. Finally, the MyChart patient portal will be updated with enhanced patient engagement features, improved accessibility, and the addition of ten languages. This updated system will use WCAG 2.1 to improve the portal’s navigation, reduce excessive graphical information, increase contrast for greater visibility, and improve patient engagement with screen readers.

Expected Benefits

These advancements in the systems will create measurable outcomes in clinical and patient engagement services at Independence Medical Center. Efficiency granted from the new systems is estimated to reduce the time clinicians spend on documentation by approximately 20%. This will also serve to improve patient portal access among non-English speaking individuals, as the system will incorporate additional language options. Complete system interoperability will mean that no repeat testing will be necessary in the near future. Clinical decision support will eliminate the risk of missing an intervention, and the support of social determinants of health will improve a patient’s safety and prevent a health issue. These advancements will positively influence care coordination across the continuum and improve patient engagement and retention rates. The improvements will also enhance performance measurement pertaining to health equity and population health. Through the implementation of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in EHR systems, Independence Medical Center is pioneering inclusive digital health and supporting national efforts seen in the Healthy People 2030 program and CMS Health Equity Framework.

Measurement of Benefits

In addition to measurable feedback, experiential feedback will be collected to determine success at Independence Medical Center. A 15% reduction in unnecessary tests and imaging in the first year, and a 25% increase in the use of a multilingual patient portal in the second year, will also be indicators of success (Talebpour et al., 2025). Additional indicators will be a 10% increase in provider satisfaction with the EHR system, as well as a 20% decrease in readmission within 30 days to meet SDOH. Quantitative data will be reviewed at the end of each quarter using analytics from Epic Caboodle and from external reporting dashboards. Qualitative data will be collected through bi-annual focus groups for frontline clinicians, as well as patient advisory councils. The focus groups will be analyzed to identify themes pertaining to the efficiency of workflow, the quality of communication, and cultural responsiveness. The results of the focus groups will be compared to pre-implementation data, and results will be provided to the EHR Optimization Committee for the continuous improvement and enhancement of the EHR system. The results will be provided to the EHR Optimization Committee for continuous improvement and enhancement of the EHR system. The focus groups will be analyzed for themes of workflow efficiencies, communication, and cultural responsiveness. These themes will be compared to pre-implementation data, and results will be provided to the EHR Optimization Committee for continuous improvement of the system. The focus groups will be analyzed for themes of workflow efficiencies, communication, and cultural responsiveness. These themes will be compared to pre-implementation data, and results will be provided to the EHR Optimization Committee for continuous improvement of the system.

Financial Evaluation

In the first year, Independence Medical Center anticipates spending around $1.7 million on tailoring the Epic system, improving interoperability, training staff, and making additional accessibility improvements. The Center believes that in the first five years of this project, they will achieve a measurable savings of $5.25 million and realize another $500,000 in value through the added benefit they will achieve in terms of patient relationships and the overall quality of care, bringing the potential net benefit to $5.75 million (SPsoft, 2025). From this data, the following three recommendations were formulated. First, the Center should adopt a phased approach to implementation, with the social-determinants-informed clinical decision support system and voice-based documentation positioned as the first priorities, with the aim of enhancing financial returns. Second, an interdisciplinary approach will enable the formation of an EHR optimization committee to ensure that performance and ROI metrics are monitored and reinvested. Third, due to the fact that they serve to meet both short-term and long-term clinical and strategic goals, it is important that the Center sustain its focus on enhancing CDS and automation of documentation. From a strategic perspective, the combined effort of all three initiatives would be advantageous for Independence Medical Center (Sutton et al., 2020).

Implementation Plan

The implementation of the Epic EHR at the Independence Medical Center in 18 months is going to be conducted in a series of four phases. The stakeholder engagement, vendor selection, and baseline data collection are Phase 1 (Months 13) and will be led by the Chief Medical Information Officer (CMIO) and the DEI Office. The patient portal improvements, integration of FHIR-based interoperability, and customization of the system will be managed by the IT department and Epic consultants and will be a part of the work in months 4-9 (phase 2). Phase 3 (Months 10 – 15) will involve pilot testing at the Behavioral Health and Adult Acute Care units and will include simulation training for Clinical Informatics and Human Resources developed by role. Phase 4 (Months 16-18) will comprise full implementation, performance reviews, and official determination of results organization-wide. The proposed benchmarks include 100% interoperability testing by the end of Month 8, with 90% of staff trained by Month 12, and 100% system go-live by Month 18. Equations will be given explicit responsibility in the implementation to hold them accountable, and they will report any issues related to the plan.

Conclusion

It’s an equitable, long-term strategy to modernize Independence Medical Center’s Epic EHR system to create a more intelligent system that allows for more comprehensive, patient-centered care. The closing of existing gaps in interoperability, cultural responsiveness, and clinical decision support will lead to quantifiable efficiency, patient safety, and clinical outcomes. In an Equity-driven, highly technologically advanced medical organization, Independence Medical Center, this project will be a long-term investment in that success, being fully justified, committed, and having an elaborate plan for implementation.