Erie Family Health Centers Completes EHRS Implementation a Year Ahead of Schedule
In early 2005, Erie Family Health Center set the goal to have all sites using an Electronic Health Record System (EHRS) by 2011. On January 7, 2010, Erie launched the new system at our last two health centers—Erie Henson School-Based Health Center and Erie Westside Health Center. Erie completed this project a year ahead of time, changing the way Erie serves its patients forever. “Erie can say with pride that we are 100% electronic for our medical records,” says President and CEO Dr. Lee Francis.
Why does having an Electronic Health Record System really matter? The EHRS is a technological advancement that improves the quality of care we provide and helps reduce health disparities in areas such as diabetes, obesity and low birth-weight. Using EHRS, medical providers have remote access to a patient’s medical record, allowing them to respond to patient health concerns from any location, at any time of day. The system also reminds medical providers when a patient is due for preventive services or lab tests, and alerts them to drug interactions and allergies. All nine of Erie’s health centers are now linked by an electronic medical record system and paper medical records are a thing of the past.
The EHRS technology brings a higher standard of care to Erie’s patients. With only 4% of private medical offices in the country using electronic medical records, Erie is on the forefront of using this technology to improve our patient’s health status, serving as an innovative model for other community health centers nationwide.
Erie Family Health Center is one of four health centers in the Alliance of Chicago Community Health Services, a unique partnership that is blazing a trail for EHRS implementation among a group of safety net providers. The Alliance, which also includes Heartland Health Outreach, Howard Brown Health Center and Near North Health Services Corp, encompassing 29 sites in Chicago that provide care to about 100,000 people through 350,000 visits a year. Working together, the four health centers are creating a databank of health information– the first of its kind. The collected data will allow the Chicago health care safety-net to improve the quality of care by comparing health outcomes to national benchmarks, tracking the results of system improvements and sharing the most effective best practices. With the help of the Alliance of Chicago and all Erie staff, we now have the ability to directly impact the health of underserved patients on a local and national level thanks to EHRS!
