What started four years ago as an effort to standardize care across all Yale New Haven Health clinical settings reached a new milestone when Care Signature recorded the one millionth use of Care Signature Clinical Pathways.
The pathways are algorithms that guide clinicians to the best practices for a particular condition or scenario. Integrated into Epic, the pathways make it easy for clinicians to access information and eliminate the need for multiple apps.
“The plan in creating the pathways was to examine and reduce variations in care so our patients always receive the highest-quality care regardless of where they’re seen,” said Daniel Heacock, director, Care Signature, YNHHS.
Care Signature organizers created an infrastructure that governs pathways development and content. Care Signature Councils decide what topics need pathways, define best practices and determine which YNHHS experts should create content.
Each Care Signature Council focuses on a single content area such as emergency medicine, pediatrics or neurosciences. There are currently 20 councils, with more planned.
Care Signature launched the first pathway, on COVID-19 care, in October 2020. There are now more than 650 pathways topics available for adult, pediatric, inpatient, emergency, intensive care and other areas.
Care Signature continues to add pathways content – most recently for Smilow Cancer Hospital – and maintains its pathway library to ensure each pathway is up to date.
YNHHS clinicians use the pathways 50,000 to 60,000 times each month, an indication of their value, Heacock said.
