Nemeth LS et al. 2007 "Strategies to accelerate translation of research into primary care within practices using electronic medical records."

"Us[ing] EMR templates to guide nursing staff patient screening" is a commonly used strategy to improve quality indicators.

"Us[ing] flow sheets, laboratory tables, and/or health maintenance to remind
practice of services needed" is a commonly used strategy to improve quality indicators.

"Us[ing] visit note templates to guide process of care" is a commonly used strategy to improve quality indicators.

"Improv[ing] documentation of relevant...diagnoses and measures" is a commonly used strategy to improve quality indicators.

"To facilitate patient outreach, ticklers and recall systems within the EMR system were used to remind patients of the services that were needed (eg, laboratories, immunizations, and screening examinations)."

"Nursing staff found that relevant disease-specific templates or flow sheets within the EMR system helped to more effectively focus and plan a patient care visit. Using templates within the EMR system, they reviewed health maintenance screening tests due and reconciled medication lists with patients. They entered medications into the EMR that patients were prescribed by outside specialists or over-the-counter medications, such as aspirin, to increase the accuracy of the patients' medication lists." They also added patient history and documented services that were received outside of the practice.

Using the EMR, nursing staff "also alerted providers directly about elevated blood pressures and other clinical parameters not at goal, and prompted providers or acted by protocol to administer or schedule interventions such as immunizations or preventive care screening."

"Many practices updated the patient status field in the EMR to track whether the patient was active, inactive, deceased, or had transferred out of the practice to assist them with maintaining a more accurate patient population."

"Nursing staff in many practices took more responsibility for ensuring the health maintenance, and screening procedures needed by the patients were up-to-date. The EMR system also featured flags, reminders, and internal messaging that were increasingly used during the [project]. Patient visit note templates were customized to specifically improve recording of the [project] quality indicators within the EMR system, including updating problem lists or medications. Some practices used the [project] patient-level reports to identify individual patients needing services and either documented these needs in the EMR for future attention or contacted the patient for followup. This activity was largely conducted by nursing staff."