Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Non-Construction - Community Health Access Network 207 S Main St Newmarket, NH 03857-1843 Project Director: Joan Tulk Phone: (603) 292-7284 Fax: (603) 292-1036 Email: jtulk@chan-nh.org Website: www.chan-nh.org Funds requested: $700,000 Community Health Access Network (CHAN) is a Health Center Controlled Network (HCCN) that is a non-profit organization (501(c)(3) established in NH 20+ years ago to assist health centers in managing information technology and responding to changes to NH’s health care system, including the move toward managed care. CHAN's NH members are federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and include Healthcare for the Homeless: Manchester; Amoskeag Health: Manchester; HealthFirst: Franklin, Laconia; Greater Seacoast Community Health Center: Portsmouth, Somersworth, Dover; Lamprey Health Care: Newmarket, Raymond, Nashua. CHAN manages the EMR (electronic medical record) and PM (practice management) systems used by most of the federally-qualified health centers in NH, for the delivery and documentation of patient care. In addition, CHAN assists the health centers with data analysis and reporting. These tools are critical to their ability to provide quality care and transition to value-based care. At this time, the health centers are confronted with a significant set of technical challenges. The current EMR and PM systems being used are dated. The primary product, originally called GE Centricity, was bought out and the current vendor is beginning to decrease support of the product. It has already announced discontinued support for e-prescribing, patient portal, secure messaging and document management tools. As a result, the health centers have determined the need to transition to a new system ASAP. A committee of health center representatives has been established, an RFP developed and we are currently vetting vendor proposals. The expenses related with the proposed implementation will be significant. In addition to higher purchase prices for such systems in today's market (due to increased functionality, as well as inflation), CHAN and the health centers will need to pay implementation costs such as, system configuration, data conversions, testing, staff training, and building new interfaces with hospitals, labs, the immunization registry, etc. We will also need to continue to support the current systems during the transition and archive old data that must be retained for legal purposes. This funding will be utilized to support the activities needed to implement the following systems on behalf of several FQHCs in New Hampshire: • A new electronic medical record (EMR) system • A new practice management/revenue cycle management system (RCM) • Ancillary health care technologies such as: Patient Portal Patient Engagement Software (patient outreach, appointment reminders, etc.) Patient Reminder Systems Population Health Management Software Patient Chronic Disease Management Systems (such as, disease registries, care management tools) Interfaces between EMR, RCM and the other systems mentioned above Telehealth platforms Document management The following activities are included in this system implementation. Health IT consultation, product research and evaluation, steering committee facilitation, total cost of ownership calculation, purchase decision, vendor contract negotiations and related costs, work plan development, project management, T/TA on change management and implementation of change management strategies, data conversion(s) plans, interface inventory and development plans, determination of required hardware purchase and configuration, software configuration, testing, end-user training plans
