Implementing an Electronic Health Record in a Health and Human Services Agency

About the Program

Category: Information Technology (Best in Category)

Year: 2015

In June 2014, the Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) began implementing an electronic health record (EHR) across multiple primary care and behavioral health “safety net” services. The project had two initial goals: 1. Improving the quality of care and client outcomes by providing a single, common health record for health and behavioral health clients, and 2. Allowing DHHS to bill for medical services to provide additional revenue for the programs, in a more consistent and rational fashion. While we are moving forward on both goals, the EHR implementation has had an even broader impact on DHHS. By creating a new “health enterprise” from what had been an array of largely independent programs, the EHR gave DHHS a broad view of client and operational data that is compelling significant changes in our business model and business processes. Ultimately, these changes are reshaping how we manage our health enterprise. For example, having an enterprise view of client data will allow us to design and target services to meet client needs based on real-time information. Similarly, having a clear view of enterprise operational data has allowed DHHS to identify and to begin addressing inefficiencies that were previously unknown to us.