Health Information & Technology

Person seated at a desk reviewing documents, with a computer monitor displaying a colorful spreadsheet. The scene is framed by a circular overlay.

The Data Services & Health Information Technology (HIT) department of the WVPCA is adept at providing the umbrella framework to illustrate the comprehensive management of health information across computerized systems and its secure exchange between consumers, providers, government, quality entities, and insurers.

    • Improvement of healthcare quality or effectiveness

    • Increased healthcare productivity or efficiency

    • Prevention of  medical errors and increased healthcare accuracy and procedural correctness

    • Reduced healthcare costs

    • Increased administrative and healthcare work processes

    • Decreased paperwork and unproductive or idle work time

    • Extending real-time communications of health informatics among healthcare professionals

    • Expanding access to affordable care

The WVPCA knows that information technology is a necessary tool used within Health Centers. We can provide a range of data-related technological assistance initiatives focused on Health Center development, including data integrity, report generation, quality improvement, promoting integration, workflow redesign, and practice transformation. In addition, we aide in the selection and implementation of EHR systems. The WVPCA is also focusing on the creation and utilization of a West Virginia CHC data repository.

The WVPCA is dedicated to providing timely information related to all areas of data and HIT to include data aggregation and analysis that will help improve quality of care and minimize cost increases across all Community Health Centers. We support the usage of data within a data repository for participating Health Centers to link data and performance measures as a mechanism to demonstrate the quality, cost effectiveness, and efficiency of Community Health Centers throughout West Virginia.

Resources

  • Health information technology (health IT) makes it possible for healthcare providers to better manage patient care through secure use and sharing of health information. Health IT includes the use of electronic health records (EHRs) instead of paper medical records to maintain people's health information.

  • Azara Healthcare, LLC is a leading provider of data-driven reporting and analytics for the Community Health marketplace. Azara’s solutions empower Community Health Centers, Primary Care Associations, and Health Center Controlled Networks to improve quality and efficiency in all aspects of their care delivery through actionable data. Their flagship product, the Azara Data Reporting & Visualization System (DRVS), currently contains data for over 34 million patients and helps their clients meet the challenges of Health Reform and in achieving the goals of the Triple Aim.

    What makes DRVS unique is that it is a scalable population health management and quality improvement solution for single health centers and networks.  How does DRVS improve patient outcomes through data?  With a simple, easy to use web- based platform, DRVS is able to monitor, control, and manage data on multiple levels from an aggregated enterprise view to individual centers, providers and locations, down to individual patient detail. 

  • HRSA has funded the HITEQ (Health Information and Technology, Evaluation and Quality) Center to support health centers in full optimization of their EHR/HIT systems for continuous, data-driven quality improvement. The HITEQ Center is operated by a partnership of JSI and Westat.

     The purpose of the center is to support health centers to use electronic health records (EHRs) to collect accurate clinical data and to use this data to support positive health outcomes for all health center patients.  HITEQ identifies and disseminates promising practices and resources for using health information technology (IT) to improve quality and health outcomes. The HITEQ website includes:

    • A searchable web-based health IT knowledgebase with resources, toolkits, training, and a calendar of related events 

    • Workshops and webinars on health IT and QI topics

    • Technical assistance and responsive teams of experts to work with health centers experiencing specific challenges or needs.

     The HITEQ Center collaborates with HRSA Partners including Health Center Controlled Networks (HCCNs), Primary Care Associations (PCAs), and other National Cooperative Agreements (NCAs) to support health centers in full optimization of their EHR/Health IT systems.

     HITEQ priority topic areas include:

    • Health IT Enabled QI

    • EHR Selection & Implementation

    • Health Information Exchange

    • Achieving Meaningful Use

    • Health IT and QI Workforce Development

    • Value-Based Payment

    • Privacy and Security

    • Electronic Patient Engagement

    • Population Health

    • Telehealth