Department of Veterans Affairs

Facilities: Kansas City VA Medical Center

North Florida/South Georgia VA Medical 

Center 

Innovation Submitted by: Rachel Cornett

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Innovation Initiative
Department of Veterans Affairs

 Describe the innovation process

 Describe goals of innovation

 Describe the CPRS search tool

 Describe potential benefits of the tool

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Currently, only the “Notes” and “Labs” sections of 

the Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) 

have text/data search function capabilities

 Many other components of CPRS contain a large 

amount of data and other information and it is 

very inefficient to manually search these records. 

 Providers, nurses and other allied health 

professionals waste valuable time searching for 

data and other care related information that 

could be quickly retrieved with a search tool.

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Our idea is to identify additional components 

of the CPRS that would benefit from a 

keyword or key term search option.

 Develop a method for CPRS users to be able 

to utilize a keyword or key term search tool in 

the identified CPRS components.

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Improve Care Quality

◦ CPRS users will be able to obtain important care related 

information that was previously missed.

 Improve Efficiency and Access: 

◦ Reduce time spent researching care related information in the 

CPRS which will improve workflow efficiency and increase patient 

access to care.

 Meet Organizational Requirements – Research requirements for 

documentation of serious adverse events and medication logs would 

be met in a more timely fashion.

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Functional Prototype Success Metric: 

Providers will be able to quickly search the 

CPRS for keywords in additional components.

 Expected Results: Reduce accidental 

duplication of therapy and reduce the time 

required to investigate prior treatment of 

patients. 

◦ This is expected to reduce the time spent searching 

the CPRS for specific information by 75%.

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Program a search function into additional 

components of the CPRS similar to that found 

in Microsoft Office applications or Adobe 

programs which highlights the searched 

word.

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 In which area of expertise do you work?

a. Clinical

b. Information and Technology

c. Administrative

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Kansas City: R. Spencer Schaefer, Pharm.D. 

and Donna Hoppe, CAC 

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 NFSG: Elaine Hill, Pharm.D. and Scott Anderson, 

Pharm.D. 

 Innovation coordination transitioned from James 

McCain to Brian Stevenson 

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Office of Acquisition Operations, Technology Acquisition 

Center “The TAC”

 Initial Requests for Information

 Budget

 Solicitation

 Technical Evaluations

 Contracting

Technology Acquisition Center (TAC)

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Teams identified components that would benefit from a 

search tool by completing a survey of end users. 

 Vendors were evaluated for their strengths and weaknesses in 

several categories:

i. Understanding of the problem

ii. Delphi and Mumps programming experience

iii. Confine search to the CPRS program

iv. Mockups of end product

v. Labor categories and proposed rates were evaluated by the

TAC

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Document Storage Systems, Inc. (DSS) was chosen 

to create the dynamic linked library “.dll” of the 

search tool

 Outstanding technical evaluation rating

 Successfully developed and tested in the Sandbox 

by DSS and team members

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 The tool is located by the drop down menus 

of CPRS 

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 Worried about CPRS slowing down?

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 Do you think you would be able to use the 

CPRS search tool in your clinical practice?

a. Yes

b. no

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Risk: accuracy

 Challenge: Clinicians may not embrace the 

program’s technology

 Training 

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Veterans

◦ Will have improved wait times during clinic visits

and receive a higher quality of care.

 VA Employees

◦ Time

◦ Access

 Additional support needed

◦ Class I development

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 The VA’s CPRS is the most complete 

computerized charting system in the world

 A search function is a basic function found in 

several other computer programs, and should 

be available in CPRS

 We will know we are successful when we can 

find medical information within seconds

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 Test search tool at volunteer test sites, currently 

available in the Sandbox, class III and class II 

development

 Implement search tool as a Class I component of a 

future version of the CPRS

 The dynamic linked library (.dll) is already 

available on the Open Source Electronic Health 

Record Agent (OSEHRA) website for downloading 

http://www.osehra.org/

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Department of Veterans Affairs

 R. Spencer Schaefer, Pharm.D., and Donna 

Hoppe, RN of KC

 Jim McCain 

 Jennifer Swick, Jelica Potter and Sarah 

Basilotto of the Technology Acquisition 

Center in Eatontown, NJ

 Elaine Hill, Pharm.D., Scott Anderson, 

Pharm.D. of NFSG 

 VA Information Resource Center (VIReC) 

 Fabian Lopez and Kevin Wright of DSS

Brian Stevenson and DSS! 

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Department of Veterans Affairs 43

Rachel Cornett, Pharm.D., Ph.D.

North Florida South Georgia VAMC

1601 SW Archer Road

Gainesville, FL 32608

(352)376-1611 ext. 4352

Rachel.Cornett@va.gov
Department of Veterans Affairs

 CPRS Search Tool User and Administrator Guide, Version #1.0 

August 2012 © 2012 Document Storage Systems, Inc. All rights

reserved. 

 https://www.vxvista.org/display/vx4ext/DSS+Patient+Search+Tool#DSSPati

entSearchTool-Webinar

 http://www.answers.com/topic/delphic-oracle#ixzz2hL57LZ1R

 http://www.northflorida.va.gov/locations/gainesville.asp

Developer: DSS, Inc. 

Website: www.dssinc.com

Phone: 561.284.7000 

Email: info@dssinc.com

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