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The only way to truly gain value from an electronic records system is to use it to improve the quality of care through carefully defined initiatives, an administrator at one physician group practice contends. “Many people just miss the whole point of implementing EHRs,” says Sandra Olsen, an administrator at St. Joseph Family Medicine Residency, Milwaukee, Wis.

Olsen described how her practice uses reports generated from its EHR to fuel quality improvement initiatives, including one aimed at increasing infant immunization levels, in a presentation at the Medical Group Management Association Conference October 29 in Philadelphia.

The practice, which has eight physicians who are on the faculty at Medical College of Wisconsin and 16 residents, uses Crystal Reports software from Business Objects, San Jose, Calif., to cull data from its records system, from NextGen Healthcare Information Systems Inc., Horsham, Pa. For example, it created a report that identified all children who lacked certain immunizations.

The practice then took a series of steps to alert parents, including sending a letter, following up with a phone call, and, when necessary, having a community care nurse pay a visit, Olsen said. The clinic, which serves a large indigent population, also offered parents an incentive to bring in their children for immunizations they lacked. It used grant funding to acquire toys and books to give to the children when they came in for vaccinations.

The percentage of infants with all their immunizations by age 2 increased to 90% from less than 50% as a result of the quality improvement effort fueled by the records system, Olsen said.

The clinic has used similar processes to tackle other quality initiatives, including identifying whether diabetics have received all necessary treatments and monitoring whether women older than age 40 receive regular mammograms.