Use of clinical pathways integrated into the electronic health record to address the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has required healthcare systems to meet new demands for rapid information dissemination, resource allocation, and data reporting. To help address these challenges, our institution leveraged electronic health record (EHR)-integrated clinical pathways (E-ICPs), which are easily understood care algorithms accessible at the point of care.

Objective: To describe our institution's creation of E-ICPs to address the COVID-19 pandemic, and to assess the use and impact of these tools.

Standard work for room entry: Linking lean, hand hygiene, and patient-centeredness.

Background: Healthcare-associated infections are costly and fatal. Substantial front-line, administrative, regulatory, and research efforts have focused on improving hand hygiene.

Problem: While broad agreement exists that hand hygiene is the most important single approach to infection prevention, compliance with hand hygiene is typically only about 40%(1).