Using Health Technology to Improve Performance on Clinical Quality Measures
Experiences of HealthNet of Indianapolis, Winner of HIMSS Davies Community Health Organization Award
According to HealthNet's Case Study for their 2015 HIMSS Davies Award:
HealthNet’s mission is to improve lives with compassionate health care and support services, regardless of ability to pay. The organization was established in 1968 to provide much needed services to central Indiana’s inner-city neighborhoods. Through a network of health, dental, school-based and homeless sites, HealthNet provides care to more than 59,286 patients annually. In 2009, we began our journey to adopt electronic medical records (EMR) to improve patient care, clinical documentation and billing practices after choosing eClinicalWorks as our vendor. Using a phased approach to EMR “Go Lives”, it took almost 2 years to fully implement the EMR at all locations. Upon completion of the Go Live project at medical sites in 2011, HealthNet focused on using the new electronic technology to develop templates and reports and redesign workflows to improve performance on a selected set of clinical quality measures, which had previously been stagnant and far below national averages. After project implementation, improvements on the selected measure sets were dramatic, ranging from 4% improvement on measures that were already being done well, to 181% improvement on the lowest performing measures at baseline.
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Resource Links
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2015 HIMSS Davies Community Health Award WinnerOverview of the winner, HealthNet, and their process.
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Related Case StudyHealthNet in Indianapolis describes their experience leveraging IT to standardize care and improve patient outcomes. With the assistance of electronic health records and a variety of IT interventions, HealthNet has reduced low birth weights, improved care outcomes for pediatric patients, and significantly increased patient satisfaction.