BUILDING BLOCKS STATE CASE STUDY #6: Maintaining Communication with Hospitals Throughout the Life of a Data Exchange Pilot Project
Virginia Newborn Screening Program
BACKGROUND
The Virginia Newborn Screening Program partnered with 12 birthing hospitals to pilot the exchange of electronic newborn screening orders and results. The project held a 3-year timeline to go from fact-finding with hospital systems to complete implementation of order and results transmission, with a sustainability plan for implementation of hospital systems beyond the pilot project.
PROBLEM
In order to learn about the processes, challenges, and timelines of the electronic data exchange project at each hospital, the Virginia NBS Program needed to communicate with the hospital project team regularly. We set up a monthly meeting to include the hospital champions, the Virginia NBS Program, and third-party service providers working with the hospitals. However, low participation by the hospitals on these calls left the NBS Program uninformed and out of touch with their pilot partners. This resulted in a re-evaluation of the communication plan.
SOLUTION
The Virginia NBS program has had success participating in shorter meetings with individual hospitals versus a monthly extended meeting with all project participants. Some hospitals were already holding regular internal project meetings that the NBS program was allowed to attend. For hospitals not holding project team touchpoints, the NBS program assisted in scheduling and coordinating these meetings. With just one hospital to speak to, sessions now took approximately 15 minutes, which meant more people were able to fit these meetings into their schedules. To maintain flexibility in scheduling these calls, team members shared responsibility in providing NBS program representation on each call. Project-wide meetings have been limited to a quarterly basis to allow hospitals a chance to learn from one-another’s experiences since it is expected that they may meet similar challenges.
“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.” -Henry Ford