From Fred Wilms, M.D.

With the influenza and respiratory illness season upon us I wanted to remind you that we have carefully thought out evidence-based pathways and protocols in the electronic order entry system for your use with patients who have primary or secondary diagnoses of pneumonia, CHF, sepsis and co morbid CHF (and any combination thereof).

The benefits of these pathways are multiple. Your patient will receive the present standard of care evidence-based recommendations maximizing patient safety and expedient care. You wil not have to “write” as many orders as previously when you chose them individually from the manual entry menu. You won’t forget any of the Core Measure orders or other diagnosis related important patient care issues. You will meet CMS and other Insurers quality standards and be less like to be subject to economic credentialing in the future. Use of such order sets is supported by the Medical Executive Committee at PFH and is one of the reasons why Piedmont Fayette Hospital is in the top 4 percent of ALL US hospitals for reduction of mortality.

The pathways are easy to find: simple type “pneu”, “chf”, “seps” in the order entry area and they will “pop up”. Use as many of the order sets/pathways that are appropriate for your patient regardless of when the illness occurs in the admission; just deselect orders that are duplicate or not appropriate for your individual patient.

Please use these order sets and pathways all the time for the above diagnoses, they will help you achieve your goal of excellent patient care. Should you have any questions about this or suggestions to improve the order sets please contact me.

Thank you for all that you do for excellent patient care at Peidmont Fayette Hospital.