Wichita’s hospitals, doctors’ offices and other health-care providers have been transitioning to electronic medical records for several years, but some of these systems’ benefits are only just being realized.
For example, Via Christi Health will flip the switch June 1 on OneChart, a Cerner-made system that gives the health system’s Wichita hospitals, clinics, labs, therapists and pharmacists a single record for each patient. (The same system will roll out to Via Christi facilities in other cities soon.)
Doctors who are helping Via Christi customize and implement the system say it will make communications among health professionals more efficient.
Beyond that, though, the living database of patient health information will let doctors study data in ways that have been difficult to impossible until this point.
Ed Hett, a family physician who also serves as Via Christi’s medical director for new models of care, says that with electronic records, it is much easier for doctors or researchers to study trends in the health of a group of people, like those of a certain age, from a certain location or with a certain disease.
Without an electronic record, doctors have to either wade through paper charts or wait months for incomplete insurance claims data, he says. With a system like OneChart, basic queries can compile information almost immediately.
“This allows us to look at specific qualities in real time,” he says.
Health care providers could then act on that information. For instance, if a disease is prevalent in a certain area, Via Christi might provide educational materials on prevention to people who live there. Or they might see that one condition is commonly paired with another, which would prompt them to be on the lookout for both.
