UpToDate Enterprise Edition: Explore Analytics Use Cases

Identify educational opportunities

Challenge

A GME program coordinator manages the daily operations of residency and fellowship programs, ensuring compliance with accreditation standards. They use data to track the progress of residents and fellows, monitor program compliance, and support continuous quality improvement. This data-driven approach helps in learning and reinforcing best practice decisions and maintaining the program’s accreditation.

The GME coordinator and CMIO of a major multi-state health system collaborated to review UpToDate utilization patterns to identify if there were learning gaps in understanding among their residents.

Actions and impact

The team used a three-step approach to uncover insights and address the identified opportunities:

• Isolate a specific service line: To understand whether the utilization data represents an area of educational opportunity, it was suggested to isolate a specific service line. In this case, they focused on internal medicine, their highest volume service line.
• Utilization data analysis: The utilization data showed that the topic “Initial assessment and management of acute stroke” had significantly higher usage among medical students and residents. This topic aligned with a diagnostic-related group (DRG) with high readmission rates and potential for secondary stroke.
• Comparison and curriculum development: The findings led to a comparison between the utilization data of the internal medicine residents and medical students to the patient DRG data within their assigned clinical cohort. Upon uncovering a meaningful variance, findings would lead to additional focused curricula on primary stroke identification.

Reduce surgical site infections (SSIs)

Challenge

Surgical Site Infections (SSIs) are a significant problem because they can lead to serious complications, including prolonged hospital stays, readmissions, increased healthcare costs, delayed recovery, and even life-threatening conditions like sepsis. SSIs can also result in additional surgeries, impaired wound healing, and long-term disability, ultimately reducing the overall quality of patient care and outcomes.

Specific medication protocols, including antibiotics, antiseptics, and glycemic control medications, are in place at healthcare organizations to reduce the likelihood of SSIs. For organizations experiencing a high rate of SSIs, it is imperative to understand whether clinicians are following these protocols.

To determine an organization’s risk for increased SSIs, UpToDate usage data can be used to identify less frequently accessed topics and highlight areas where additional resources or training might be necessary. For instance, if infection control measures, SSI prevention, or treatment topics are not being accessed as often as expected based on the organization’s surgical occurrence rates, this could indicate a gap to be addressed.

Actions and impact

By looking at data from a different perspective, one organization was able to uncover and address likely gaps in knowledge and protocol adherence.

• Focus on least-used topics: Rather than focusing on the top-used UpToDate topics, this organization focused on the topics used the least and compared them against the key medications needed in SSI prevention protocols.
• Collaboration with UpToDate customer success team: Upon uncovering discrepancies, the organization collaborated with the UpToDate customer success team to ensure key clinical users and specialties were aware of and using the analytics resources available to them through the enterprise portal. Growing usage in particular drug topics indicated a successful awareness campaign.

Reduce risk and enhance clinician support – MATE Act compliance

Challenge

Medication Access and Training Expansion (MATE) Act compliance is essential for maintaining regulatory standards, enhancing patient safety, managing risks, and ensuring the overall quality of care. It supports operational efficiency and helps build trust with patients and stakeholders.

The MATE Act requires all DEA-registered practitioners to complete 8 hours of training on the treatment and management of patients with opioid and other substance use disorders. UpToDate offers a selection of eligible topics that allows providers to choose those most relevant to their practice, accruing the required Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit while using their time efficiently and increasing satisfaction. Adhering to the MATE Act aligns with best practices in medication management and contributes to the overall quality of care provided by the hospital. It supports a systematic approach to managing high-risk medications and improving patient outcomes.

Actions and impact

The health system implemented a standardized approach to remind users of the MATE-eligible CME topics available in UpToDate and the ease of fulfilling their requirements in this convenient way. The analytics report helped them target their recipients and monitor results.

• Customized CME accrual: Customers can work with their UpToDate Customer Success team to remind users that they can use UpToDate to accrue and submit CME for MATE-eligible topics, rather than taking generalized training not specific to a clinician’s practice.
• Monitoring educational efforts: Customers can monitor the response to educational efforts promoting UpToDate as a source for mandatory CME.

“When I first heard about the DEA’s new requirement (MATE Act), I looked at a variety of courses to meet it. They all had blocks of time spent on content that wasn’t relevant to my patients or how I practice. I was excited to learn that I could choose topics from UpToDate that supported my patient population while helping me earn the needed CME credits. It turned what felt like a burden into a win."