{"id":149416,"date":"2019-04-30T12:29:54","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T16:29:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?post_type=school-college-post&p=149416"},"modified":"2019-04-30T13:00:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-30T17:00:38","slug":"uconn-health-reaches-ehr-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2019\/04\/uconn-health-reaches-ehr-milestone\/","title":{"rendered":"UConn Health Reaches EHR Milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Sun
The sun rose on UConn Health’s integrated electronic health record at 5:17 a.m. April 28, 2018, close to the actual dawn that day. (Photo by Lynne Bettley)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s a year now since UConn Health went live with its new electronic health record system and patient portal known as myUConnHealth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Following more than two years of preparation for the transition away from paper charts, the modern, integrated platform informally known as Epic, the name of the software vendor, went online at 5:17 a.m. April 28, 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we have seen in the last year is more than the implementation of a new electronic health record,\u201d says Dr. Andy Agwunobi, UConn Health CEO and executive vice president for health affairs. \u201cThis really is a transformation in patient care, one that we\u2019ll continue to build on in year two and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt truly is a journey, and this is just the first part of it,\u201d says UConn Health Chief Information Officer Bruce Metz. \u201cIt\u2019s a much more complex and comprehensive system than we\u2019ve had, with a more consistent process across health systems and better connection to patients, and that results in better patient care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that all UConn Health\u2019s inpatient and outpatient practices are using the same integrated system, patient information can flow securely among the patient\u2019s providers, and coordination of care with outside providers is more consistent. All members of the care team have access to the most current patient information, greatly enhancing the continuity of care both within and beyond the UConn Health system, and enabling providers to take steps to manage care before and after the visit.<\/p>\n

\"Chief
Chief Information Officer Bruce Metz presents a congratulatory cake to celebrate the arrival of UConn Health’s new electronic health record April 28, 2018. (UConn Health file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been really positive,\u201d says Dr. Eric Mortensen, chief of general internal medicine. \u201cPrior, it wasn\u2019t always immediately clear to the primary care physician what the specialties were doing. This has greatly improved communication between stakeholders.\u201d<\/p>\n

That includes the patient, who can take a more active role in his or her own health care with the myUConnHealth portal. It provides patients with secure, real-time access to their medical chart, including notes from their visits and lab and test results. They also can send messages to their providers, request prescription renewals, manage appointments, and keep their own information updated in between visits.<\/p>\n

And while patients benefit individually, the integrated health record generates aggregate data that can lead to promising advances in epidemiology.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re using data in a smarter way, which opens up a lot of opportunities for us not only to treat disease but also to prevent it,\u201d says Dr. Dirk Stanley, UConn Health\u2019s chief medical information officer. \u201cThe promise of all of this is we\u2019ll be able to use data to protect the health of our community to a degree that our forefathers could not have imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n

Adds Mortensen, \u201cWe\u2019re only beginning to tap our research potential.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UConn Health went live with its integrated electronic health record and patient portal one year ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":111,"featured_media":149417,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1868],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2010],"class_list":["post-149416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meds"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-11 06:25:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/111"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/149417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149416"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=149416"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=149416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}