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Does your current technology enable delivery of patient-centered care?

Health information technology (HIT) can be a challenging and risky undertaking for any provider, and especially for safety-net providers with limited financial resources and staff capacity. However, HIT is vital to delivering patient-centered care. Done right, it can coordinate and use information from the patient, primary care physician, and other providers and healthcare organizations to help create a patient's true "medical home."

New federal rules (released Jan. 2010) will soon reward healthcare providers who demonstrate 'meaningful use' of HIT. "Meaningful use" includes leveraging HIT to capture and report data, focus on quality improvement, and successfully manage patient panels, particularly chronic disease patients-- all of which are also core elements and standards of the Patient-Centered Medical Home model.

Working in partnership with PCDC, our work has enabled more than 40 providers to adopt and effectively use key technologies, such as electronic health/medical records, health information exchange, personal health records, and clinical decision support.

What We Do

PCDC provides the expertise and support to guide practices through the various stages of large HIT projects and help project teams develop the skills and capacity needed to maintain HIT systems, improve them, and take on future projects.

Using the PCDC HIT Lifecycle Model©, we work with practices at all stages of HIT adoption. Our services include:

• Strategic planning and selection of technologies that best fit your organization;
• Executive coaching, staff training, and team-building to improve management of HIT projects, optimize technologies, and improve quality of care;
• Establish proper work flows to prepare providers and staff;
• Design and pilot Health Information Exchange, clinical decision support, patient portals, and personal health records.

Program Impact

Effective and sustainable implementation. PCDC provides the expertise and coaching services that practices can use to plan, prepare, and effectively transition to new technologies. Tactics we specialize in include technology selection, budgeting, project management, staff training, design of procedures and workflows, and evaluation.

Coordination and management of care. PCDC works with practices to develop and implement essential HIT elements, such as Health Information Exchange to transmit health information across providers and organizations; clinical decision support to enhance diagnostic efforts, reduce medical errors and improve patient safety; and patient portals to access personal health information and communicate effectively with their providers.

"Meaningful use" and medical home compliance. State and federal governments are expected to offer reimbursement enhancements for practices that meet medical home and meaningful use standards. PCDC helps providers design and implement systems that align with these standards, including effective capture and reporting of data, evidence based medicine, health information exchange, clinical decision support, and chronic disease management.