Yesterday, Thursday, Christine spent the morning working and then practicing her part of the presentation. I set out in search of a grocery store to pick up a few items. It was unbearably hot and humid by 10:00 a.m. in Milwaukee, near 90 degrees and probably 100% humidity, so my 2 mile walk, mostly in the sun, was not so pleasant. But mission accomplished and the shopping was successful. One thing that tickled me was a sign in the grocery. In my previous post, I said that beer and brats reigned supreme in Milwaukee. This sign kind of reinforces that.
On the way back to the hotel I saw this sculpture that was kind of cute. Its title is Dancing Through Life.
Thursday afternoon Christine attended the gallery to the AHDI Board meeting while I lazed around in the room. Starting at 5:30 there was a reception put on by M*Modal, the premier sponsor of the conference. M*Modal is the second largest transcription company in the country and they have been very active and supportive in AHDI conferences and initiatives. What was cool about the reception was its location, in the round top of the hotel on the 21st floor in a space called Vue. From there one can see quite a bit of Milwaukee. What I liked was finally being able to see Lake Michigan. So in addition to good food and drinks, we got a wonderful view.
After the reception, Christine and I were invited to the suite of two of Christine’s favorite Spectrum customers, Ann and Lucy. These two have been on the team who became first users of TQAudit at Spectrum, and as guinea pigs, they have been instrumental in troubleshooting and problem-solving during the rollout of the software. They are absolute hoots and so we spent the next couple of hours talking and laughing with them, and one of their colleagues, Lois. It was a great time.
And so we come to presentation day, Friday. Christine is part of a presentation with two Spectrum presenters, Sheila and Joyce, and they are talking about the really interesting process that Spectrum has pioneered in assessing and analyzing the quality of clinician-created healthcare documentation.
The process developed by Spectrum became very labor intensive, so they chose TQAudit as their software tool to help automate the process. As a result, they can better analyze the quality data they are collecting and identify areas requiring improvement. This enables them to pinpoint their educational efforts with clinicians in order to improve the quality of their documentation. Errors in electronic health records is a really hot topic and increasingly, the errors are being produced by clinicians who are entering data directly into the EHR. The presentation was well-attended and I thought all three of the presenters did an excellent job discussing the process at Spectrum.
There was a lot of interest in the Spectrum process and I think there will be some good leads for TQAudit as a result. It’s one thing to implement a process, but there needs to be software to enable good data mining and analytics. So, time will tell if Christine comes away with some prospects.
Later in the afternoon came another momentous occasion for Christine and her Spectrum colleagues. AHDI presents a series of award each year at this annual conference. There are awards for several association/profession-related things, one being Innovation Through Technology. Christine won that award in 2011, which was a real feather in her cap and gave her a great deal of visibility. This year, the project Christine has been working on with Spectrum Health was nominated for the Innovation Through Technology Award, which was ground-breaking because it focused on the partnership and collaboration between a QA program and its use of technology, specifically TQAudit. When the winner was announced, there was a resounding cheer from the audience. I think this was because Christine has made such an impression on the members of AHDI and her cheerleading for healthcare documentation integrity and quality and has made many, many friends in AHDI. The members of AHDI recognize her work and the effort she puts in to supporting the work of healthcare documentation specialists. So, it was quite gratifying to her to hear the cheer she got. While the Spectrum project is very impressive, their collaboration with Christine and her ability to customize the TQAudit software to meet their needs is the real winner of this award. To say the least, I was very proud of her.
For dinner Friday night we met up with our friends Linda and Karen Fox-Acosta and went to a German restaurant, Mader’s. This was a really cool restaurant and it seemed like we really were in a German pub and restaurant. We had a delicious dinner and sampled some really good beer. It was nice catching up with Karen and Linda and Christine was now able to relax and just hang out now that the stress of the presentation and awards ceremony were behind her.
That picture of Christine in the big chair was taken at Mader’s. The chair sits in the foyer of the restaurant and it is a hoot seeing people sit in it having their picture taken.
So the end of the first full day of the conference. Sessions start at 7:15 in the morning and we’re tuckered out. So it will be lights out very soon.