Role of Electronic Medical Records (EMR) and HEAL NY Funding

A key component of the pilot is the ability to capture patient information electronically to ensure that each member of a patient’s care team can easily access that information. This includes the ability of each practice to use e-prescribing of medications.

Capturing data in the EMR system will improve the quality of care and will enable an accurate assessment of whether clinical and utilization benchmarks are met.

To facilitate the use of EMRs, pilot participants secured a grant of $7 million in late 2009. The funds, received through the HEAL NY Program, are being used to build a more streamlined approach to sharing patient information.

The HEAL 10 investment is expected to lead to significant savings the region’s health care system in the coming years. Unnecessary paperwork and redundancies throughout the system will be removed, and doctors and nurses will have better access to patient information, especially in those cases where a patient has seen more than one provider.