Marcy Doyle, chief operating officer at Lamprey, described the effort at HIMSS13 in New Orleans, noting it as an expensive, labor-intensive project. Lamprey got the certification, in large part due to assistance from Community Health Access Network (CHAN), a consortium of FQHCs and other providers that also target the indigent and uninsured.
CHAN hosts an EHR system in place at Lamprey and other sites in the consortium. That remote hosting model—which includes I.T.-related services such as firewall maintenance and training—helped reduced operating costs for Lamprey and the other sites, added Kirsten Platte, executive director at CHAN. CHAN invested $600,000 in an EHR upgrade, which made the system meaningful use eligible, Platte said. The group’s members—who pay monthly dues to use the system—stand to receive some $1.2 million in MU payments in return.
Doyle said that meeting the medical home standard required close examination of workflows around medication refills and scheduling. Lamprey streamlined its refill process as a result, now fulfilling requests in seven hours, as opposed to seven days in the old model.
