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Health IT

Stratis Health is working to advance e-health and health information technology (HIT) across the settings of care—hospitals, clinics, mental health facilities, nursing homes, and home health agencies—and throughout communities.

Various federal and state mandates are requiring health care providers to have interoperable electronic health record (EHR) systems and to use e-prescribing. Stratis Health is helping providers meet these mandates—and most importantly, helping providers select and use HIT to improve the quality of care delivered and increase patient safety.

Assistance to providers

Stratis Health serves as an unbiased consultant, guiding health care organizations through change management for EHR implementation. We assist them in preparing for, selecting, implementing, and fully using HIT. Stratis Health helps organizations improve access to patient information, clinical decision support, and reference data to measure performance; identify opportunities for improvement; and track progress. Working with health care facilities, we assist them in using EHR tools for patient self management and preventive care, and to build chronic care management systems.

Consulting services and support. More than 100 Minnesota adult primary care clinics and hospitals have used our EHR adoption and implementation services and support. This technical assistance stems from our work with the national Doctor’s Office Quality Information Technology (DOQ-IT) Program. As part of the DOQ-IT program, we led clinics through a six-phase change management process, allowing them to take full advantage of all the tools in their EHR. More >

  • 93.5% of clinics participating in Stratis Health’s DOQ-IT program said they were satisfied with our EHR adoption support, compared to a national average satisfaction rate of 86%
  • Nationally, the DOQ-IT program experienced an attrition rate of approximately 50% of participating clinics; our attrition rate was less than 1%

Health information exchange. Stratis Health has worked on several rural Minnesota HIT projects in order to improve health care quality, safety, efficiency, and costs. These included a regional health information exchange to allow for accurate information sharing in a standard and secure manner, consulting services to a critical access hospital (CAH) HIT network, and educational consulting to a collaboration of health care organizations in northern Minnesota.

Personal health records (PHR). Stratis Health has worked with Minnesota communities to implement PHR systems that assist in managing chronic disease and health information exchange. These systems can serve as a tool to decrease the issues of fragmented communication and diverse EHR systems with limited interoperability. The goal is to better manage and coordinate social and health services in order for people to remain as active and independent as possible.

Tools and resources

Stratis Health’s setting-specific tools and resources assist provider organizations in planning for and optimizing use of HIT.

Policy

Stratis Health is taking a leadership role in advancing HIT in both Minnesota and nationally. Our CEO serves as co-chair of the Minnesota e-Health Advisory Committee, and we have provided testimony and presentation to national agencies and at conferences. To provide a greater understanding of HIT adoption and use in Minnesota, we’ve conducted assessments of HIT in different care settings.

Rural Health Information Technology Workforce Challenges and Recommendations. Stratis Health cosponsored the National Rural HIT Workforce Summit which resulted in recommendations for policy makers to support HIT workforce development efforts and funding; provide input on the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and other federal/state opportunities to support HIT workforce development; define resources needed for successful rural HIT implementation; and recommend methods for tracking national HIT workforce data. Summary (September 2009, 8-page PDF)

Minnesota Nursing Home - Health Information Technology Survey Results. Profile of the level of HIT use in Minnesota nursing homes, contracted by MDH. We surveyed 380 nursing homes and learned that 31 percent have an EHR and the most common barrier to implementation is lack of capital resources to invest in technology. (June 2008, 13-page PDF)

Electronic Health Record Landscape Assessment: Minnesota’s Primary Care Clinics. Stratis Health regularly surveys more than 600 adult primary care practices in Minnesota to assess the level and types of EHR use in the state. In the most recent statewide survey, the number of clinics that have implemented or were in the process of implementing an EHR system had significantly increased—from 46% in 2005 to 62% in 2007. (August 2007, 13-page PDF)

Health information technology An overview of Stratis Health’s work (2-page PDF)

Contact Stratis Health for assistance with your quality improvement and patient safety needs.

If your organization has projects it would like to work on, contact us to discuss how we can work together to support initiatives related to HIT.