Adventist HealthCare Conference Addresses Electronic Health Records

Representatives of more than 200 health care providers from across Maryland met at in Rockville on March 29 to discuss a new program that is giving doctors and patients better access to medical records.

established the Ambulatory Care Electronic Health Records Support Program in 2010 to help outpatient physicians launch electronic health records systems—or EHRs—in their practices.

Adventist HealthCare’s first Ambulatory Care EHR Support (ACES) Program User Group Conference featured a keynote address by Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Secretary Joshua Sharfstein.

Dr. Sharfstein and other healthcare experts discussed advanced use of EHRs and showcased practices that have successfully used the eClinicalWorks EHRs under the ACES program.

ACES has grown to include more than 100 physicians. It is aimed at giving providers shared electronic access to the patient data needed to deliver coordinated care focused on the prevention and management of chronic disease.

“Programs like ACES help us fulfill our mission of delivering population-based care to ensure the wellness of the communities we serve,” Adventist HealthCare president and CEO William G. Robertson said in a news release. “By partnering with physicians through this program, we are able to improve care coordination and reach patients at all stages of their health-care experience.”

The conference also unveiled the newest phase of ACES: Adventist HealthCare’s pilot launch of its Health Information Exchange. The HIE will give physicians a way to automatically share patient records between their offices, Adventist HealthCare hospitals and affiliated clinics. It seeks to give patients and health care providers better access to patients' health information, thus improving care.

The initial HIE launch involved more than 40,000 patients and eight providers at a local primary care practice.

“The ACES program and our HIE make it possible to deliver coordinated care to patients because health information from doctors’ offices, hospitals, clinics, labs, radiology centers and other health-care providers is now available in one place through secure, electronic means,” Arumani Manisundaram, director of connected health for Adventist HealthCare, said in a news release. “As we look toward the future, we see this as an important way to achieve a continuum of care to deliver high-quality wellness and health services at an affordable cost to our community.”

Click here for more information about Adventist HealthCare’s ACES Program.