(Newville is a fictitious community) BACKGROUND Newville Clinic is a community health

(Newville is a fictitious community)

BACKGROUND

Newville Clinic is a community health clinic organization located in New York State that serves about 15,000 patients per year. It is a group practice of 10 physicians, 4 physician assistants, 4 nurse practitioners, 2 department managers, 2 part-time laboratory technicians, a phlebotomist, and several other ancillary team members. Due to the good that Newville Clinic offers to the community and its patients, it is growing in size. The clinic currently does not use an electronic health record (EHR). They strictly use paper but know that they need to implement an EHR to meet regulatory and compliance requirements. Using paper for so many years has left Newville behind in its technology environment. This has been particularly problematic given the pandemic and severe weather-related events that have occurred in recent years.

The CEO of Newville Clinic, Dr. Lalanda Tooney, has received several complaints from staff about workflow issues and not using an EHR. There have been concerns about the efficiency, responsiveness, and accuracy of data. Newville’s strategic plan is a goal to evaluate, select, and implement an EHR to improve safety and quality and alleviate future issues. She also hopes that this implementation will open the door for future innovations. Although the implementation of an EHR means many changes for the clinic (workflow, cost, technology environment, organization-wide training, electronic data storage, interoperability, etc.), the entire staff supports the endeavor and is involved in the process as much as their busy practice schedule allows. 

A steering committee has been convened and has begun conducting interviews, surveys, and several full-team meetings with the clinical care team (end-users) to discuss their needs. Patient needs and satisfaction, as well as optimal workflow, are the major driving forces for this project. Newville Clinic would also like to expand to include a community health research department and use their patient data for clinical and population health research. Training and vendor support are important items for success. Therefore, this is a large ticket item and is being planned into the schedule and budget.

Needs assessment: The Rural Population of Newville

Rural populations face higher healthcare disparities compared to urban populations. It is critical to implement electronic health records (EHR) in Newville clinics located in rural areas to reduce the populations barriers to quality medical care. Newville clinics serving the rural population should implement EHR systems to improve data quality, streamline workflow and enable the organization to offer remote healthcare services to their rural population by integrating EHR systems with other telehealth technologies.