Seattle - More than 50 physician practices, health clinics, and hospitals in mainly small and rural communities throughout the Pacific Northwest are receiving significant funding to help them adopt and use information technology to improve healthcare for their patients.
Healthcare providers throughout Washington, Alaska, Idaho, and Oregon are each getting up to $20,000 from an innovative public-private partnership, the Washington Health Information Collaborative. The organization is comprised of First Choice Health, the Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA), the Puget Sound Health Alliance, and Qualis Health. First Choice Health and the HCA have contributed a million dollars ($500,000 each) to the awards fund for 2007. Organizational and in-kind services are contributed by the Alliance and Qualis. This is the third year of the awards program that has now distributed $2.2 million to healthcare providers since 2005.
“We are intentionally targeting smaller and more rural physicians’ practices for these awards,” says First Choice Health President/CEO Ken Hamm, “because we want to be sure that all people, even if they don’t live in the region’s big cities, have access to the best healthcare available. The cost of technological innovation is much greater for small physician practices than for large ones because there is less economy of scale.”
“The use of information technology such as electronic medical records is a proven way to reduce medical errors, provide effective care more consistently to all patients and to be more efficient,” says Steve Hill, Administrator of the Washington State Health Care Authority. “The investment in this grant program by Washington State will reap benefits for residents throughout the region for years to come.”
Too many doctors offices and hospitals still rely on paper files, faxes, phone calls, and faulty memories. When medical histories are piecemeal, that affects healthcare quality and cost. The American healthcare system if finally starting to use the same type of technology that banks have used for years in ATMs and that most businesses in nearly every other industry use to operate effectively and efficiently.
The health information technology awards are intended to improve healthcare safety, quality, and cost by enabling physicians and other practitioners to instantly and securely access accurate individual patient medical records, in addition to looking at aggregated data among all their patients for improved decision-making. As healthcare quality comparison reports become more common, physicians and hospitals are adopting technology to help them more consistently provide care that is effective in keeping their patients as healthy as possible.
First Choice Health (www.fchn.com) is a regionally-based hospital- and physician-owned company that provides healthcare services to more than one million members in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington State. The company emphasizes quality healthcare, public service, and bringing technology to benefit healthcare practitioners and patients.
The Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA) (www.hca.wa.gov) is a cabinet-level agency that administers health programs and provides access to high-quality healthcare for more than 500,000 Washington residents, including 316,000 state and local government employees and 128,000 enrollees in Basic Health, a state-subsidized program for low-income families. HCA's mission is to make affordable healthcare accessible by delivering the best value in healthcare to all enrollees through efficient procurement strategies and cost-effective healthcare delivery systems.
The Puget Sound Health Alliance (www.pugetsoundhealthalliance.org) is a private, non-profit organization—a team effort of those who provide, pay for, and use healthcare services. We all work together to improve the quality of patient care for a healthier community, at a price more people can afford.
Qualis Health (www.qualishealth.org) is dedicated to improving the quality of healthcare delivery and health outcomes for individuals and populations across the nation. In operation since 1974, the non-profit, healthcare quality improvement organization (QIO) is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and has offices in Alaska, Idaho, California, South Carolina, and Nebraska. Qualis Health holds QIO contracts with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in Idaho and Washington.
Attachment: Full list of award recipients in Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Idaho
Other Contacts:
Dave Wasser
WA State Health Care Authority
(360) 923-2711
Dave.Wasser@HCA.WA.GOV
Diane Giese
Puget Sound Health Alliance
(206) 448-2570 ext. 117
diane@pugetsoundhealthalliance.org
Joyce Shaw
Qualis Health
(206) 361-5419
joyces@qualishealth.org
