The Provider Order Entry Team (POET) at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, OR was funded to adapt RAP to study clinical decision support (CDS) systems in community hospitals. Subsequently, POET received further funding to use these methods to study CDS systems in outpatient clinics. We have defined computerized provider order entry (CPOE) as a system that allows a provider, such as a doctor or nurse practitioner, to directly enter medical orders via computer. We have defined clinical decision support as “passive and active referential information as well as reminders, alerts, ordersets, and guidelines.”(32 (link))
We generated a fieldwork guide and process for conducting rapid assessments that can be applied to a range of workplace studies in clinical informatics. Please seeAppendix A for a sample fieldwork guide. The guide and process have been refined over the course of two years (2007–2009), as we first visited two community hospitals and subsequently visited five ambulatory settings. Starting by using existing examples of protocols and fieldwork guides from public health settings as templates, (23 ;24 ;26 ;27 ) we have been able to successfully and reliably create a fieldwork guide to conduct RAP across a variety of organizations ranging from primary to tertiary care settings.
Our adaptation of RAP for clinical informatics has been informed by guidelines for designing and reporting such evaluations, such as Utarini, Winvist and Pelto’s “11 critical criteria” for conducting RAP(33 ) and the STARE-HI statement of reporting clinical informatics evaluations.(22 (link)) Scrimshaw and Hurtado (23 ) provide numerous examples of data collection guides to be used by RAP team members, including observation guides for studying health-care providers, suggestions for documenting specific health-care processes, and focused interview questions for specific types of health-care personnel. We used these as starting points for creating data collection tools that related to clinical decision support in community hospital and outpatient settings. At the end of each site visit, we discussed changes to our protocol and we met frequently before each site visit in order to tailor our protocol for site-specific conditions.
To date, our fieldwork guide includes the following: 1) a site visit preparation schedule, 2) a pre-visit site profile, 3) a site visit schedule, 4) a fact sheet to be given to subjects, 5) a typical interview guide, 6) a form for field notes, 7) a brief field survey instrument, and 8) an agenda for team debriefings. Data analysis procedures evolved over time to promote reflexivity (awareness of how each team member’s perspective may influence the research process), documentation, and triangulation. Within a few months of a site visit, we conduct our data analysis and write a report of our findings. As we visit multiple sites, we compare themes and findings across sites in order to produce research reports that examine focused topics across various sites. Previously published rapid assessment protocols have emphasized the importance of a fieldwork guide for rigorously documenting evaluation activities, gaining a clear understanding of what team members are expected to do, and ensuring replicability. (23 ;24 ;26 ;27 ) In developing and adapting our procedures over time, we have found that lesson extremely valuable.
We generated a fieldwork guide and process for conducting rapid assessments that can be applied to a range of workplace studies in clinical informatics. Please see
Our adaptation of RAP for clinical informatics has been informed by guidelines for designing and reporting such evaluations, such as Utarini, Winvist and Pelto’s “11 critical criteria” for conducting RAP(33 ) and the STARE-HI statement of reporting clinical informatics evaluations.(22 (link)) Scrimshaw and Hurtado (23 ) provide numerous examples of data collection guides to be used by RAP team members, including observation guides for studying health-care providers, suggestions for documenting specific health-care processes, and focused interview questions for specific types of health-care personnel. We used these as starting points for creating data collection tools that related to clinical decision support in community hospital and outpatient settings. At the end of each site visit, we discussed changes to our protocol and we met frequently before each site visit in order to tailor our protocol for site-specific conditions.
To date, our fieldwork guide includes the following: 1) a site visit preparation schedule, 2) a pre-visit site profile, 3) a site visit schedule, 4) a fact sheet to be given to subjects, 5) a typical interview guide, 6) a form for field notes, 7) a brief field survey instrument, and 8) an agenda for team debriefings. Data analysis procedures evolved over time to promote reflexivity (awareness of how each team member’s perspective may influence the research process), documentation, and triangulation. Within a few months of a site visit, we conduct our data analysis and write a report of our findings. As we visit multiple sites, we compare themes and findings across sites in order to produce research reports that examine focused topics across various sites. Previously published rapid assessment protocols have emphasized the importance of a fieldwork guide for rigorously documenting evaluation activities, gaining a clear understanding of what team members are expected to do, and ensuring replicability. (23 ;24 ;26 ;27 ) In developing and adapting our procedures over time, we have found that lesson extremely valuable.