practicum

1. NC AHEC Email Tagging
Industry Practicum for
Lauren Tomola
Presented April 13, 2012

2. North Carolina Area Health Education
Centers
• Founded in 1970s to improve the quality of
healthcare in North Carolina
• 9 locations throughout North Carolina
• Focus on education and health information
technology
• Regional Extension Centers as part of the
HITECH Act

3. Email Archive and Wiki Creation
• Collaboration across NC AHEC locations
• Email listserv as a valuable resource for unique
information
• Wiki creation to store emails and share other
documents

4. The Problem: Emails
• Fractured email conversations
• Format of uploaded emails

5. The Problem: Wiki
Ineffective search options
Lack of wiki structure

6. The Solution
• A standardized format for emails
• A set of categories with which users can browse
the wiki or upload new items
• A tagging vocabulary addressing important,
frequently-searched concepts

7. Email Reformatting
• Combination of all replies
• Elimination of repeated or
irrelevant messages
• Title describing the content
• Heading indicating the sender,
date, and original question
• Links to attachments and
related messages
• Table of contents allowing
quick movement to a specific
reply

8. Text Analysis to Determine Key
Concepts
• Review of the NC AHEC email archive and
existing wiki documents for important terms
• Consultation of organizations, regulations, and
industry documents
• Using terms to determine information categories

9. Categories
1. Attestation 5. Practices
▫ Calculations ▫ Health Topics
▫ Eligibility ▫ Practice Redesign
▫ Implementation ▫ Working With Practices
▫ Payments 6. Program Rules and
▫ Prework Requirements
▫ Registration ▫ Blue Cross Blue Shield
▫ Timing ▫ CMS Incentive Programs
 E-Rx Incentive Programs
2. Certified Technology  EHR Incentive Programs
▫ Selection ▫ Community Care of North
▫ Vendor List Carolina
3. Finance ▫ Community Health Centers
▫ Billing ▫ NC HIE
▫ Taxes ▫ NCQA PCMH
4. Internal Operations ▫ PQRS
7. Useful Information

10. Tagging Vocabulary
• Assessment of the relative importance of terms
• Removal of synonyms
• Comparison of official documents and informal
conversation to determine effective phrasing
• Assignment of every term to one or more
categories

11. Tagging Examples
• Differentiation between related concepts
▫ Group number; NPI number; Medicaid number
• Consolidation of synonyms
▫ 30% rule; Medicaid patient volume; needy
patients
• Elimination of terms with inappropriate scope
▫ Too narrow – newborns; log paper
▫ Too broad – error; guidelines
▫ Outdated – Sage; PQRI

12. Implementation
• Creation of a new wiki
• Transfer of all existing files
▫ Removal of duplicate items
• Design of a browsable interface
▫ Central pages for every category
▫ Links to every page or file
• Tags applied to all wiki items

13. Browsing Interface

14. Tags in Practice

16. File and Tag Use by Category
Items Tags
1571 2030
1265
644 1025
693
277
195 222
527
13 112 247
Attestation 136
Certified
Finance
Technology Internal
Operations Practices
Rules and
Regulations Other

17. Usability Testing Plans
• 5 tasks
▫ Locate materials with search and tags
▫ Contribute to a conversation
▫ Begin a new conversation
• Assessment of tasks by experienced wiki users
• Future testing by NC AHEC staff members

18. Sustainability
• Uploading and reformatting listserv
conversations
• Ensuring new wiki files are posted in
appropriate categories
• Creating tags and links for new files
• Review of new tags

19. Future Goals
• Increasing use of the wiki
• Encouraging NC AHEC staff to post materials to
the wiki instead of the listserv
• Making the wiki the primary point of
collaboration