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Local Health Care Practice Joins National Call to Improve Patient Safety
(January 19, 2005) Kansas City Internal Medicine (KCIM), Kansas City’s largest private practice Internal Medicine physician practice, signed an agreement late last week to implement electronic medical records into their three clinics (Kansas City, Overland Park and Lee’s Summit), over the course of the next eight (8) months. Kansas City Internal Medicine recognizes that the strong and growing trend to transform our nation from a largely paper-based medical record to an electronic model can help patients receive necessary and timely medical care, reduce medical errors and enable public health officials to more quickly identify and respond to threats from naturally occurring diseases and potential bio-terror attacks.
On April 27, 2004, President Bush called for the majority of Americans to have interoperable electronic health records within 10 years. In doing so, President Bush signed an Executive Order establishing the position of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. This person was charged with developing, maintaining and overseeing a strategic plan to guide nationwide adoption of health information technology. David J. Brailer, M.D., Ph.D., was assigned to this task on May 6, 2004. On July 21, the strategic report, entitled, “The Decade of Health Information Technology: Delivering Consumer-centric and Information-rich Health Care,” was submitted to Tommy G. Thompson, Secretary of Health and Human Services. The detailed plan discusses at length, the national initiative to make the health of our communities safer, more efficient and of higher quality.
“There is significant data to suggest that by utilizing electronic health records, that we can provide an even better experience for our patients. A recent example came from a medical group from Tennessee, when the VIOXX recall became public. The clinic was able to access all of their patients on VIOXX within minutes, and literally within a few hours had contacted thousands of patients. That is something our practice could not do without electronic medical record data. We are very excited about the ability to provide a better health environment for our patients,” said Sam Hoeper, Jr., MD, President, Kansas City Internal Medicine. Kansas City Internal Medicine physicians have made a commitment to this project despite the high costs involved. There is significant movement on a regional and national level to assist medical groups in adopting electronic health records, although, none of those funds have been available in this area at this time. “Kansas City Internal Medicine will be working with local health care organizations, legislators and also on a national level with the “eHealth Initiative” out of Washington D.C. to ensure that the Kansas City community is able to realize better health care, and the benefits of moving to an electronic environment,” said Lori A. Mallory, FACMPE, Chief Executive Officer, Kansas City Internal Medicine.
Resources:
www.ehealthinitiative.org
www.leapfroggroup.org |
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