Under the recently-signed agreement, InConcertCare will replace its clinics’ existing practice management system with GE Healthcare’s Centricity® Practice for Community Health Centers, an integrated clinical and financial solution designed specifically for the facilities’ needs. The system will be utilized by more than 140 providers in the InConcertCare network, equipping the organization with tools to support their centers’ growing data collection needs, UDS and Title X reporting requirements and CHC-specific billing demands.

GE Healthcare has more than 20 years experience meeting the unique IT needs of community health centers in the U.S., with more than 120 federally-qualified health centers currently utilizing the company’s EMR and practice management solutions. GE Healthcare’s CHC customer base is expanding rapidly, and the company also announced today that nine other federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) in the U.S. have recently selected Centricity solutions.

According to Ted Boesen, CEO, InConcertCare’s ability to further digitize their community health centers through the adoption of Centricity was enabled by a recent economic recovery grant of nearly $2.0 million from the federal government.

Centricity Practice for Community Health Centers will allow InConcertCare to fully automate participating clinics, leveraging features such as integrated scheduling, electronic messaging, care alerts for physicians, real-time decision support, drug-disease interaction checks, ePrescribing and powerful claims processing services to help improve management of the revenue cycle. The solution will also allow InConcertCare to connect with state networks in the future, further enhancing patient care coordination and reducing the duplication of procedures and tests.

“We are building on our decade of success with a common practice management system, dental clinical information system and our newer experience with a registry that allows quality and health outcomes data collection for this population-based system,” said Boesen. “Centricity EMR is the next step in achieving our network’s goal of operating a paperless, fully-integrated system, and will provide us a powerful tool to meet our population health management objectives and federal reporting requirements. Partnering with GE Healthcare for this step in our evolution was a unanimous choice of a network selection committee comprised of clinical and administrative representatives from our member clinics. We are looking forward to leveraging GE’s expertise with CHCs and tapping into the experience of its expansive CHC customer base.”

The use of a health center-controlled network to support independent FQHCs as they select and implement technology is an efficient and effective approach for community health centers, which are typically strapped for the resources required in order to take advantage of EMR technology. CHCs have historically been leaders in access and quality and are central players in the healthcare reform effort currently underway in the United States.

“We are now seeing exponential growth in the adoption of EMRs by community health centers, which is clearly a step toward improving access to care – and the quality of care – for underprivileged and underserved populations across the country,” said Jim Corrigan, vice president and general manager, GE Healthcare IT. “We are proud to have been selected as a partner by InConcertCare and are committed to supporting their continued success as they leverage the full potential of HIT to improve health outcomes while increasing operational and clinical efficiencies.”

ABOUT InConcertCare:

InConcertCare is a non-profit organization established in 1997 to improve the delivery of accessible, efficient, coordinated, quality, and appropriate health care services for the medically underserved in Iowa and Nebraska through the creation of an integrated service delivery network. The network's goals are to redesign integrated information technology support systems, develop collaborations to share administrative and financial management best practices, and re-engineer clinical operations to improve clinical value.

ABOUT CENTRICITY ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORD:

Centricity EMR is an electronic medical record system that enables ambulatory care physicians and clinical staff to document patient encounters, streamline clinical workflow, and securely exchange clinical data with other providers, patients, and information systems.

Centricity EMR is used by thousands of physicians to manage millions of patient records, and is among the most widely used ambulatory care electronic medical records. Centricity EMR empowers healthcare providers to deliver the highest quality of care at lower costs.

Centricity EMR version 9.2 from GE Healthcare is a CCHIT Certified® product for Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT®) Ambulatory EHR 2008 + Cardiovascular + Child Health. The Commission’s product certification designates that a healthcare information technology product has been tested against a comprehensive set of functionality, interoperability and security criteria and has passed inspection of 100 percent of the criteria. The Certification Commission’s inspection process is based on real-life medical scenarios designed to test products rigorously against the clinical documentation needs of providers and the quality and safety needs of healthcare consumers and payers.

CCHIT® and CCHIT Certified® are registered marks of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology.

ABOUT GE HEALTHCARE:

GE Healthcare provides transformational medical technologies and services that are shaping a new age of patient care. Our broad expertise in medical imaging and information technologies, medical diagnostics, patient monitoring systems, drug discovery, biopharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, performance improvement and performance solutions services help our customers to deliver better care to more people around the world at a lower cost. In addition, we partner with healthcare leaders, striving to leverage the global policy change necessary to implement a successful shift to sustainable healthcare systems.

Our "healthymagination" vision for the future invites the world to join us on our journey as we continuously develop innovations focused on reducing costs, increasing access and improving quality and efficiency around the world. Headquartered in the United Kingdom, GE Healthcare is a $17 billion unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE). Worldwide, GE Healthcare employs more than 46,000 people committed to serving healthcare professionals and their patients in more than 100 countries. For more information about GE Healthcare, visit our website at www.gehealthcare.com.