Health IT Adoption in Rural Clinical Settings

This free 90-minute teleconference will discuss efforts to implement, integrate and enhance care in rural clinical settings using health IT systems.  
 
Date: August 27, 2010
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 p.m., EST
Sponsored by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) National Resource Center for Health IT

Presenters:

• Maggie Gunter, Ph.D., Maggie Gunter, PhD, is a medical sociologist and health services researcher who is President and Executive Director of LCF Research, a non-profit health research and innovation institute affiliated with Lovelace Health System, a large integrated healthcare system in Albuquerque, NM.   Dr. Gunter has extensive experience in the development, implementation, and evaluation of system changes and other interventions designed to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of health care.  In the mid-to-late 1990’s, Dr. Gunter was instrumental in the development of Lovelace’s nationally recognized Episodes of Care Disease Management Program.  She has also served as Principal Investigator for numerous health services research projects, with an emphasis on the use of population-based data to identify deficiencies in care and to evaluate the impact of interventions.  Since 2004, Dr. Gunter and her LCF IT team have led the New Mexico Health Information Collaborative (NMHIC), the designated statewide health information exchange network.  Dr. Gunter holds a PhD in medical sociology from the University of Pittsburgh.

• Paul Gorman, M.D., is Associate Professor in the department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology (DMICE) at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU).  He is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics and a Fellow of the American College of Physicians.  He is board certified in Internal Medicine and is on the teaching faculty at OHSU as well as at Providence Portland Medical Center.  He is an active member of Physicians for a National Health Program. Dr. Gorman completed formal training at Rush Medical College in Chicago, learned about the realities of primary care in private practice in Astoria, Oregon, and completed a fellowship in General Internal Medicine at the Portland VA.  He currently divides his time between clinical care, supervising residents and students in inpatient and outpatient settings; teaching medicine and medical informatics to health professionals and informatics professionals; and research, focused on how clinicians use information and technology in patient care.

• John Kravitz, M.H.A., is the Assistant Vice President of Information Technology at Geisinger Health System located in Danville, Pennsylvania.  He has responsibility for the Keystone Health Information Exchange, the only functioning HIE in the state of Pennsylvania which connects disparate health care providers across the community to share clinical patient information.  He also shares responsibility for the technology for the Beacon Communities Grant of which 15 health care organizations across the country are participating in order to improve patient outcomes while reducing cost for a defined population.   In addition he has I.T. responsibility for the Geisinger Tele-Medicine program which currently consists of services; e-ICU, Tele-Stroke, Tele-Trauma, Tele-Rheumatology, Tele-Pulmonary, Tele-Psychiatry, and Tele-Echo for Pediatrics, among others.

Dr. Gunter will begin the teleconference by discussing the challenges of establishing an HIE in a rural area.  She will also speak about efforts to use telemedicine to improve healthcare in New Mexico.  Dr. Gorman will present findings from his AHRQ funded project, which aimed to improve medication safety for elderly populations in rural areas.    Mr. Kravitz will conclude the teleconference by discussing Geisinger Health System’s Health Information Exchange and some new efforts to improve their HIE in rural Pennsylvania.  He will also explain how they are incorporating telemedicine into their healthcare efforts.