Press Release
For more information about Erie Family Health Center, please contact Valerie Comprelli at 312.432.7463 or vcomprelli@eriefamilyhealth.org
Erie Family Health Center Receives Lumity Technology Leadership Award
On Thursday, March 18, 2010 Erie Family Health Center was honored at the Lumity Dinner at the Four Seasons Hotel. Erie is honored to have received the 2010 Not for Profit Technology Leadership Award.
The Lumity Technology Leadership Award, presented by Accenture, recognizes innovative uses of technology in the nonprofit sector. Projects submitted had to exemplify the ways in which creative application of technology produces measurable, sustainable impact in the community. There were 22 organizations submitted for this honor and 13 judges. The judging of the final four organizations took place Friday, March 5th. The four finalists were: Corporation for Supportive Housing, Erie Family Health Center, Onward Neighborhood House and Thresholds.
Erie Family Health Center submitted the Electronic Health Records System (EHRS) Project, a multi-year technology project through which Erie implemented electronic medical records at all 9 of its sites. In 2002, Erie’s Board of Directors decided that electronic health records would help achieve the organization’s goal of providing the highest quality of care to underserved populations. Therefore, the EHRS Project was written into the organization’s strategic plan and business plan. Eight years later, in January 2010, Erie proudly completed the project a year ahead of schedule.
Left-to-right: James Bowler, Lumity Board Member; Kara Kennedy, Executive Director, Lumity; Lee Francis, MD, MPH—President and CEO, Erie Family Health Center; Kate Sanserino—Manager, Quality Improvement, Erie Family Health Center; Neil Gissler, North America Technology Managing Director, Accenture
Using EHRS, medical providers have remote access to a patient’s medical record, allowing them to respond to patient health concerns from any location, any time of day. It also reminds medical providers when a patient is due for preventive services or lab tests, and alerts them to drug interactions and allergies. All 9 of Erie’s health centers are now linked by an electronic medical record system; paper medical records are a thing of the past.
Erie is grateful for its partnership with the Alliance of Chicago Community Health Services. The Alliance is a partnership between fellow community health centers: Near North Health Services Corporation, Heartland Health Outreach, Howard Brown Health Center and Erie. The Alliance centrally hosts EHRS, proves technical support and training, and numerous other services including the polling of health outcome data with other federally qualified health centers—the first databank of its kind for Chicago’s medically underserved. The Alliance now works with over 20 health centers from coast to coast.
The EHRS Project has transformed the way health care is provided at Erie. Erie can help reduce health disparities—in area such as diabetes, asthma and cancer—experienced by low-income, uninsured, minority Chicago residents. Every Erie medical provider has health outcome goals for their patients. These data reports, extracted from EHRS, are provided to them each quarter. They use the data to improve the level of care they give every day, allowing Erie to have a greater impact on the health of the community, one patient at a time.
And EHRS facilitates timely care which can ultimately be life saving. Clinicians can immediately identify critical situations based on medical history accessed through EHRS. Patients are directed to appropriate level of care (ER vs. Health Center). Life-saving decisions are sometimes made because vital information is readily available.
Lumity has been successfully helping to build a strong and healthy nonprofit sector in the Chicago region for over a quarter of a century. By providing vital technology, financial support services and training, Lumity promotes the development of high-performing nonprofits by making their resources go father. This once-a-year fundraising event offers a wonderful opportunity to network with technology and financial leaders, while helping multiple organizations.
Erie Family Health Center is honored to have received this award. Dr. Lee Francis, President/ CEO and Kate Sanserino, Quality Improvement Manager, were at the Lumity Dinner to receive the award.
View the finalists of the Nonprofit Technology Leadership Award: