Problem Management: An Innovative System to Improve Problem List Workflow at Intermountain

Kathryn Kuttler, PhD, Director of Clinical, Quality and Research Medical Informatics, and Chad Hodge, MS, PhD candidate, Software Engineer, Intermountain Healthcare.  Electronic problem lists are an integral component of the EMR, and serve as the patient’s current health issues repository. Coded problems can be used to drive downstream activities such as decision support, evidence-based medicine, billing, and research cohort generation. Meaningful Use also requires use of a coded problem list. Over the course of three years, Intermountain Healthcare developed a problem management module (PMM) that provides innovative functionality to improve clinical workflow and problem list adoption, e.g. smart search, user customizable views, problem evolution, and problem timelines.