The HRSA Office of Health Information Technology and Community Health Centers

Alliance, Inc., (CHCA) extend their thanks to everyone

who helped make the workshop a success! 

Two-Day EHR Regional Workshop

At this two-day practical, vendor neutral workshop, staff from CHCA, member health centers, national partners, and statewide subject matter experts shared their perspectives on Electronic Health Record (EHR) system implementation and strategies for achieving meaningful use through Health Information Exchange and e-Prescribing, as well as legal, financial, and data systems management. Considerations for business continuity planning, the clinician’s role in system development, and cost containment strategies were also presented.A special break out session for Senior IT leaders to visit a commercial data center and explore the challenges of hosting a system was full to capacity - event participants suggested extending this event to three days so that all attendees could participate!

They came from all over the nation - Texas, New Mexico, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Puerto Rico - as well as Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky - and more! Speakers included HRSA staff, national consultants, local experts, and CHCA staff and member leaders. For two days, EHR selection, implementation, legal ramifications, staffing, technology, and quality improvement were the focus.

This sold-out workshop provided an excellent opportunity to showcase the tremendous effort and progress CHCA network members have achieved over the past five years, along with sharing cautionary tales about some of the pitfalls and challenges taking the plunge into advanced health information technology can bring. Sharing our story and making contact with other community health center leaders also gave us the opportunity to hear some of the challenges that are occurring elsewhere - including organizations that purchased EHR as stand-alone systems and are now starting over from square one to replace ineffective implementations.

Participant evaluations indicate that the time and content were well worth the effort: "All presenters did a great job relaying information that will assist us in our EMR/EHR implementation;" "Presentations were highly informative;" and "Consistently excellent speakers." Speaker evaluations yielded a 4.9 average rating on a 5 point scale.

Overall, participants gave the entire event (from registration through venue and content) a 92% satisfaction rating. To learn more, please click through the following links:

Workshop Agenda

Key Learning Points

Senior IT Leaders Break-Out Session