Father Joe's Villages and McKesson's EHR Help Improve Care for Underserved Communities.
Practice Partner[R] Patient Records Electronic Health Record aids in care for San Diego indigent patients
ATLANTA -- Father Joe's Villages in San Diego, Calif., and McKesson's Practice Partner[R] Patient Records software, an advanced electronic health record (EHR) solution, are helping improve care for thousands of indigent patients using the donated software from McKesson. The Practice Partner EHR is helping Father Joe's to improve medical record documentation and promote health screenings. It also enables the medical staff to develop benchmarking reports for areas such as prenatal care, psychiatric care, and diabetic and asthmatic disease management.
Father Joe's is a non-profit corporation that consists of several facilities offering a variety of services and programs to the homeless. "McKesson's EHR has been instrumental in helping us serve this very needy, and often overlooked population throughout the San Diego area and in Indio," said Dr. Margaret McCahill who serves as the Medical Director at the St. Vincent de Paul Village Family Health Center, which is a part of Father Joe's Village.
Father Joe's relies on more than 200 volunteers to help deliver care to the underserved. The complexity of this patient population, coupled with volunteer providers, requires an easy-to-use, intuitive system. After a one-hour orientation, provider volunteers are able to document visits, place orders and write prescriptions in Practice Partner software the same day. "With the software, our volunteers are also better able to document, manage and treat chronic illness and other conditions that would normally land our patients in emergency rooms," adds Dr. McCahill.
"Knowing that McKesson is helping underserved families, young children, men and women who are in need of healthcare is very satisfying and an example of our commitment to the well-being of communities nationwide," said David Henriksen, vice president and general manager of McKesson's Physician Practice Solutions.
Based in part on the success at St. Vincent de Paul Village, the Practice Partner Patient Records software has been successfully deployed at a similar clinic at another one of Father Joe's facilities that serves the underserved, called Martha's Village and Kitchen, in Indio, Calif., a desert community northeast of San Diego. The Practice Partner EHR is also used at a unique mobile clinic concept -- consisting of a 40-foot-long truck fully outfitted with exam rooms, which travels to churches at various local communities throughout the San Diego area to provide medical services at no charge to the homeless and uninsured.
About McKesson
McKesson Corporation, currently ranked 18th on the FORTUNE 500, is a healthcare services and information technology company dedicated to helping its customers deliver high-quality healthcare by reducing costs, streamlining processes, and improving the quality and safety of patient care. McKesson is the longest-operating company in healthcare today, marking its 175th anniversary this year. Over the course of its history, McKesson has grown by providing pharmaceutical and medical-surgical supply management across the spectrum of care; healthcare information technology for hospitals, physicians, homecare and payors; hospital and retail pharmacy automation; and services for manufacturers and payors designed to improve outcomes for patients. For more information, visit http://www.mckesson.com.
