Quality Improvement in Vascular Access Care Through the Use of Electronic Health Records

• Electronic health records are commonplace in healthcare settings where patients receive intravenous therapy
• There is an opportunity to utilize electronic health records for quality improvement in vascular access and intravenous therapy
• Building in vascular access requirements to existing electronic health record systems may be one way that the vascular access specialty area can improve quality

BackgroundHospitalized patients routinely require a form of vascular access, as do an increasing number of patients receiving care in community settings. Ensuring that the best quality of care is delivered to those requiring vascular access is a difficult task to achieve because multiple care providers initiate, assess, and access these devices. Electronic health records (EHRs) are a tool that may be used to aid clinicians in achieving best practices at the point of care and throughout an organization.MethodsWe describe how EHR technology can be used to support quality improvement initiatives in vascular access practice and its related research and explore the importance and value of embedding vascular access requirements within EHR technology.ResultsEHRs may be a valuable tool for supporting quality improvement efforts in the field of vascular access. Requirements of the clinical specialty such as clinical documentation, reminders and alerts, computerized provider order entry, electronic medication administration, and data extraction can be built into the existing functions of EHRs.ConclusionsClinicians practicing in this specialty area should consider working with their clinical informatics and information technology departments to identify opportunities within their organizations to improve how the technology can be leveraged to support vascular access care.