Read this article about University Health Network, one of our finalists, in the category Best Achievement in Technology Enabled Process Automation, selected by the independent judging panel, for the 2019 Business Transformation & Operational Excellence Industry Awards program. Click here to read articles on other finalists.

UHN Learner Registration Program

Background

University Health Network (UHN) is an international source for research, patient care and education and consists of four hospitals, five research institutes, and a post-secondary institution.  In order to meet the emerging health demands and respond to dramatic changes to our environment, University Health Network (UHN) is transforming our organization to be a Learning Health Organization; an organization that focuses on continuous learning to improve our efficiency and effectiveness on our patient care delivery.  Our clinical learners, which includes residents, fellows, medical students, nursing, and health professional (HP) learners, are valuable assets to our organization.  Each year, we welcome over 5500 clinical learners.  These learners are expected to provide patient care the first day they arrive at UHN. 

Challenge

Learners should have access to our Electronic Patient Record (EPR) the first day they arrive in order to provide clinical care, as they need access to read patient health history and order medications and tests.  The current delay in accessing clinical systems for learners has an impact on patient safety and workflow efficiencies.  Every July, we have approximately 1300 learners arriving at UHN within a 2-week period (see Figure 1 July Learner Onboarding).  To onboard thousands of learners in a short time period creates tension to our system.

We hear of learners waiting 3 to 5 days without access to electronic patient information.  Through survey feedback, only 40% of learners are getting access to EPR by the first day they arrive. 

Figure 1: July Learner Onboarding

Key Outcomes

The main driver for this program is safety.  Learners need prompt access to electronic patient information.  Our program has taken an innovative approach and used process automation in driving efforts to improve the onboarding process for our learners to ensure they have access to critical functions that allow them to provide safe and quality patient care.  As part of streamlining the onboarding process, we automated many antiquated processes, which resulted in saving approximately 7560 working hours annually (across various groups including education coordinators, learners, and technical support staff).  We decreased the actual work effort by 97%, 75%, and 88% in creating an Active Directory, Pyxis (Medication Dispensing), and EPR accounts respectively.  We increased the speed from requesting to getting an EPR account ­by 99%. 

Prior to automation, creating an EPR account took an average of 4 days from request to getting an EPR password; it now takes less than 7 minutes.  Furthermore, our organization went from more than 25 different registration processes for learners to now only one registration process.  Some additional benefits include the cost savings that we are able to achieve through automation.  We use a third party provider to conduct our account creations; through automation, we estimate our savings to be at least $300,000 annually.  Please see Figure 2: Key Efficiency and Cost Savings.

Figure 2: Key Efficiency and Estimated Cost Savings