EHR Case Studies

Portrait of Catherine J. Bruno

Bangor Beacon Community: Establishing Best Practices in Health Care

Catherine J. Bruno | May 24, 2011

Governance – it’s been the Achilles heel of more than one multi-stakeholder health information organization. As a collaborative partnership including hospitals, a primary care association, and other health care provider organizations, the Bangor Beacon Community realized early on that our success depended in large part on a solid governance strategy that linked the goals of the Beacon Community Program and the broader stakeholder community.

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Portrait of Aaron McKethan

What We Can Learn from the Beacon Communities on Their First Birthday?

Aaron McKethan | May 13, 2011

A year has passed since 17 diverse communities nationwide were notified by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) that they would receive Beacon Community awards. These critical resources empowered the Beacon Community Awardees (“the Beacons”) to build and strengthen their local health IT capacity, use health IT in innovative ways to improve the efficiency and quality of care they can provide their patients, and identify and disseminate these innovations and lessons-learned to others.

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Portrait of Aaron McKethan

IC3, Improving Care through Connectivity and Collaboration

Aaron McKethan | April 4, 2011

Interview with Christie North, Vice President, HealthInsight
1. What does the IC3 Utah Beacon Community hope to accomplish?
Our ultimate hope is to improve the health of our community so that patients with diabetes do not progress to the next stage of illness prematurely and so that they may experience a greater quality of life. If we are successful,10 years from now, no patient will be admitted to a hospital or go to the emergency department in diabetic trouble that could have been prevented.

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Portrait of Theresa Walunas

Finding a Personal Meaning in Meaningful Use

Theresa Walunas | March 16, 2011

At the Chicago Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (CHITREC) we’ve had many discussions about what Meaningful Use means. We’ve discussed core sets, menu sets, quality measurements, numerators, denominators, eligibility thresholds, attestation, electronic health record (EHR) certification and reporting tools. On the surface, Meaningful Use looks to be a very complicated thing. Why else would we need 62 Regional Extension Centers, a national outreach program, and a small army of talented clinical and technical people across the country to help our health care providers achieve it?

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