NIH CC Clinical Research Information System (CRIS)
Investment ID: 009-000001405
Overview
Program Title
NIH CC Clinical Research Information System (CRIS)
Description
CRIS is a core system with hospital functions of medical order entry, clinical documentation and results retrieval. Multiple ancillary systems will support clinical data collection for labs, radiologic images, blood bank and nutrition.
Type of Program
Major IT Investments
Multi-Agency Category
Not Applicable
Investment Detail
The Clinical Research Information System (CRIS) is the Electronic Health Record (EHR) for the NIH Intramural Program. The Office of the National Coordinator indicates that we are required to have a certified EHR that includes clinical decision support, interfaces to clinical information systems, and the ability to share information with patients and other healthcare organizations. The main impacts from EHRs include improved care coordination, improved diagnostics & patient outcomes, increased patient engagement and improved communication with referring physician partners.
The Return of Investment (ROI) Measurements include:
Improved diagnostics and patient outcomes is a product of having all data in one place and the capabilities of clinical decision support which provides a mechanism to reduce or eliminate uninformed decisions or medical errors.
Reduction of staff to manage paper documentation and the medical record. The NIH CC has transitioned to an entirely electronically maintained medical record. The majority of documentation is entered directly into CRIS, with the remaining paper documentation scanned (primarily consent documents). This transition has decreased contract staff by 6 FTE and saved $2M over two years.
The return on investment of the personal health record (PHR) is shown through the reduction of staff that manage patient engagement and the amount of paper that no longer is sent to the patient. Since the NIH Clinical Center's upgrade to a personal health record in 2017, the system has over 13,000 patient-connected accounts. The staffing resources saved would be seen by the institute research care teams and is difficult to measure.
The return on investment of the consolidated reporting to patients' authorized referring physicians due to the centralization of all the data has been realized through a reduction in the resources needed to print individual paper reports and collate them across multiple systems. When thiswas completed in FY2016 we saw a reduction of 1 contract FTE staff.
Decrease of protocol deviations. The amount of reduction of protocol deviations by having an EHR would be seen by the institute research care teams.
Decreased manual collection of data. Data no longer needs to be copied from the hardcopy medical record and then entered into another system. The amount of staffing decrease due to this automation would also be seen by the institute research care teams.
The Return of Investment (ROI) Measurements include:
Improved diagnostics and patient outcomes is a product of having all data in one place and the capabilities of clinical decision support which provides a mechanism to reduce or eliminate uninformed decisions or medical errors.
Reduction of staff to manage paper documentation and the medical record. The NIH CC has transitioned to an entirely electronically maintained medical record. The majority of documentation is entered directly into CRIS, with the remaining paper documentation scanned (primarily consent documents). This transition has decreased contract staff by 6 FTE and saved $2M over two years.
The return on investment of the personal health record (PHR) is shown through the reduction of staff that manage patient engagement and the amount of paper that no longer is sent to the patient. Since the NIH Clinical Center's upgrade to a personal health record in 2017, the system has over 13,000 patient-connected accounts. The staffing resources saved would be seen by the institute research care teams and is difficult to measure.
The return on investment of the consolidated reporting to patients' authorized referring physicians due to the centralization of all the data has been realized through a reduction in the resources needed to print individual paper reports and collate them across multiple systems. When thiswas completed in FY2016 we saw a reduction of 1 contract FTE staff.
Decrease of protocol deviations. The amount of reduction of protocol deviations by having an EHR would be seen by the institute research care teams.
Decreased manual collection of data. Data no longer needs to be copied from the hardcopy medical record and then entered into another system. The amount of staffing decrease due to this automation would also be seen by the institute research care teams.