Dignity Health’s Megan Reichert on working in clinical informatics

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This week’s Making Rounds spotlights Megan Reichert, a clinical informatics nurse at San Francisco-based Dignity Health. Reichert spoke about what it means to work in clinical informatics, the type of technology she trains providers to use, and the biggest misconception about her job.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

How would you describe your job to someone who doesn’t work in healthcare?

I enable nurses and doctors to document the care they provide and help them learn to use new technology. My position is a little bit unique because I not only train physicians how to use the electronic health record (EHR), but I also work with physicians and pharmacists to update order sets.

What’s an order set?

It’s basically a list of evidence-based interventions, and doctors can pick and choose which ones they do and don’t want. It’s like a checklist. Order sets need to be updated periodically to reflect the newest research, so it can be difficult for large health systems to keep their order sets up to date, which means that providers are using out-of-date orders—not great for patient safety or patient care.

Besides EHRs, what other types of technology do you train providers to use?

Once in a while there may be a new app. We rolled out TigerConnect, which is kind of like WhatsApp for healthcare, so we helped end users download it on their phone. We also recently implemented iPads at the bedside so nurses could take pictures of wounds and upload them to the healthcare record. We had to teach them how to use the app and the iPad in order to make that happen.

What’s the biggest misconception people might have about your job?

That I don’t have a connection to patients. I categorize my work as deeply impacting patient care. All clinicians spend a lot of time documenting, so to me…their ability to document efficiently and comprehensively very much impacts patient safety. Although I’ve basically transitioned away from the bedside for the most part, I still like to maintain that…I have an impact on patient care.

What healthcare trend are you most optimistic about?

The expansion of Medicaid and increasing access to healthcare for all.

What healthcare trend are you least optimistic about?

Throughout Covid-19, we saw Big Tech try to integrate [into] healthcare, and it basically failed. I’m apprehensive because I think Big Tech is used to having big margins, and in healthcare, we roll with really tight margins. I’m skeptical that they’re going to be able to come in and have the financial trade-off for how much of a heavy lift it’s going to be to really transform healthcare.