Report Explores Workflow Impact of Health Information Technology on Care Coordination in Ambulatory Care

A new AHRQ report that presents findings from a six-site qualitative study highlights a number of opportunities to improve the impact of health information technology on care coordination activities in primary care. These opportunities include changing system design, adding missing features, addressing work activity variation and improving the user interface. Stronger impact from the care coordination role was noted when there were well-defined workflows, tools designed to fit the workflow, adequate training, good team communication, physical co-location of care coordinators with other care team members, stronger team relationships and time to allow the new work system to stabilize and learning to take place.