Ehr - Donnie parish and charles w. grim's ehr story, cherokee nation

GRIM: Donnie, what types of things are these incentive monies going to allow us to do that we haven't been able to do before? PARISH: Well, first of all, the incentives are a great recognition of all the hard work our staff's accomplished over the years. With the incentive monies, we'll be able to reinvest into technologies that allow for more efficient and better use towards the coordination of care for our patients. With those new technologies, we can also provide new services, things such as telemedicine or online patient portals, allow our patients to better interact with the care that they're being given. It gets them more engaged and, with that, better outcomes. GRIM: What lessons have we learned, trying to get ready to receive these Medicaid incentive payments, that we might be able to pass on to other people? PARISH: Building a strong relationship with your state Medicaid agency is probably a key in achieving success for meeting the criteria of meaningful use. Ensuring open communication with all your partners is very helpful in creating these collaborative-type of events to meet the goals that you're trying to achieve. One of the things that we really, really worked on was to create teams with the proper people, using the experts in your fields, across the board -- not just health care providers, but also your ancillary services, and working together on all the goals for a common answer. GRIM: You talked a little bit about having team effort here at the facility to try to implement some of the changes that were necessary. What were just a few of the process changes that the teams worked on? PARISH: Sure. Anytime you bring new technology into health care, you have to look at redesigning your processes and some of those processes could be from the coordination of care, when they first come in through registration, to who they've been seen by. The technologies involved could speed that access up. It allows for quality of care, speedier access, number one, and then patient safety. By having an integrated system, like we do, it allows us to share the date between our providers, which speeds up access and also ensures the quality of care that we provide. By lessening the paper, there's less chance for medical errors. GRIM: You've been one of the key leaders that has helped us get to the point that we're at, so that we're able to receive these incentives. Is there anything else that you'd like to add, that you think would help people that are looking at this or are attempting to start this right now? PARISH: I think it's a long process. Start early, if you haven't already started. I know many are looking for a blueprint. I don't think there's a single blueprint out there. Each instance will be a little different. You're going to have to work on the team that you have, work with your providers. You know, sometimes technology and health care providers, it can be very difficult to intermingle those together, but the technology is there, it's to help both the provider and the patient, and we look forward to the future. GRIM: Well, we appreciate everything you've done to help. You're right, it's been a team effort across the system. The Health Care Authority, we could not have done it without their help, too, so thank you for everything you've done to help out. PARISH: Okay. Thank you.