Bridge Community Health Clinic in Wausau, Wis., plans to automate both the clinical and business sides of its clinic with practice management technology rolled out in July and an electronic medical records system slated to go live by the end of the year.
Clinic executives tapped Alpharetta, Ga.-based HealthPort to provide the new software, including HealthPort Revenue Cycle Management, which is also scheduled to go live by year's end.
"The systems we purchased from HealthPort will help our clinic move forward with important automation in three key areas: operations, patient care and finance," said Pauline Putman, the clinic's chief financial officer.
Bridge Community, a federally-funded clinic, selected HealthPort PM to provide its three locations with stronger reporting capabilities through a reporting tool designed to meet federal and state quarterly reporting requirements for community health clinics, she said.
Putman said the clinic will be able to better educate and promote healthy lifestyles for the 21,000 under- and uninsured patients the clinic serves.
"Clinicians will have the ability to pull up patient care information across our organization, track patients by disease process and show them an on-screen picture of their healthcare progress," she said.
"From my perspective, the ability to have these three solutions from a single vendor was an important factor," she added. "When you use disparate vendors and systems there are a lot of man-hours required to pull information together. In today's busy healthcare environment, no one has the time to integrate disparate information."
HealthPort officials say they serve approximately 12 percent of the community health centers nationwide.
