ECU, UHS officials announce health network partnership

ECU, Our Children’s Clinic become first physician practices to adopt HealthSpan

GREENVILLE, N.C. – Leaders of ECU Physicians and University Health Systems of Eastern Carolina have announced a major step forward in the expansion of electronic medical records in eastern North Carolina.

ECU Physicians is now using HealthSpan, UHS’ state-of-the-art patient records system, officials from both organizations said during a press conference today.

The expansion of the HealthSpan network is “a major shift in what’s going on in health care in eastern Carolina,” PCMH President Steve Lawler said.

ECU Physicians, the physician practice of the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, deployed HealthSpan at its Firetower Medical Office in March. Adopting UHS’ electronic medical record system improves doctors’ ability to treat and track their patients, said Dr. Nicholas Benson, Brody vice dean. Roughly 140,000 patients get treatment at ECU Physicians clinics each year.

“There’s only one person that matters, and that’s the patient,” Benson said. “The whole reason we’re doing this collaboration with HealthSpan is our desire to meet our patients’ needs.”

HealthSpan is valuable in myriad ways for ECU. It improves patient care by giving doctors instant access to information about any care patients have received at UHS hospitals. The system also makes registration and scheduling easier and more efficient, Benson said.

There’s also educational value in HealthSpan, Benson added. The 300 medical students at Brody and 340 residents training at ECU and PCMH need exposure to the latest technology available to clinicians.

“We are responsible for teaching them, not how medicine was practiced in the ‘80s or the ‘90s or even in many parts of the country today,” Benson said. “We’re responsible for teaching them how they should be and can be practicing medicine in the next decade.”

Lawler and Benson credited The Duke Endowment, which awarded PCMH and ECU a $3 million grant in 2007 to fund HealthSpan implementation at the Brody School of Medicine. Plans call for the rest of ECU’s clinics to adopt HealthSpan in the future.

Our Children’s Clinic, a private pediatrics practice in Winterville, also went live with HealthSpan in March. The practice chose HealthSpan so its record system would be integrated with the one at PCMH, according to Dr. Louise Bradshaw, a physician at the practice.

Since launching HealthSpan in March, Bradshaw and her partner in Our Children’s Clinic, Dr. Angela Stewart, have seen particular benefits during off hours. “When a patient of ours is admitted (to PCMH) on the weekend or overnight, I can see their outpatient records from the hospital,” Bradshaw said. “That helps us provide more seamless care.”

Since 2007, UHS has implemented HealthSpan at six eastern North Carolina hospitals: PCMH, Heritage Hospital in Tarboro, Roanoke-Chowan Hospital in Ahoskie, Chowan Hospital in Edenton, Bertie Memorial Hospital in Windsor and The Outer Banks Hospital in Nags Head.

UHS’ goal in launching HealthSpan is to create an electronic medical record that spans every step in the health care process, said Stuart James, UHS chief information officer. UHS’ goal in adopting HealthSpan is to create an electronic medical record that spans every step in the health care process, said Stuart James, UHS chief information officer. That means encouraging providers to adopt HealthSpan where appropriate and using health information exchange technology to ensure HealthSpan and other record systems can smoothly share information. “The goal has always been that the information should move faster than the patient does,” James said.

The system already allows physicians to see records of all care administered in user facilities, including prescriptions, procedures, diagnostic images and test results. It’s also designed to alert clinicians when they’re prescribing drugs their patients are allergic to or ordering duplicate procedures.

In the future, HealthSpan will also allow patients to access their own records from home, James said.

Lawler called electronic medical records “the spine and backbone” of efforts to improve patient care and quality. He and James noted the emphasis federal authorities have placed on the issue; the Obama administration has called for all physician practices in the United States to have digital health record systems in place by 2014.

“What we’re doing here is very consistent with what you’re hearing on the national level from President Obama and others,” James said.