To make getting cohesive care even easier for patients, Christie Clinic and Carle are more closely aligning their use of patients’ records.
Beginning Oct. 1, Christie Clinic providers will join Epic, an electronic health records (EHR) system, through Carle’s Community Connect platform. This will allow providers at Christie Clinic and Carle to securely access clinical data of their mutual patients. For patients who see providers at both organizations, this unified record will help enhance care, efficiency, provider communications and access to ancillary results.
This integration provides patients a complete view of their health records to best support managing their healthcare needs. When logging into their patient portal, patients will see what they’ve always seen at first. When they view upcoming appointments, all Christie Clinic and Carle appointments will appear.
The convenience of shared electronic records allows patients this one-stop view of their care.
“This improved connectivity will enhance all providers’ ability to care for our patients,” said William Schuh, MD, Carle chief medical information officer. “The biggest winners will be our patients.”
Portal patients who only use Christie Clinic providers or only use Carle providers will not experience any changes.
Although Community Connect officially launches for providers Oct. 1, patients who are – or have been – both Christie Clinic and Carle patients may notice updates sooner.
“Community Connect brings so many benefits to patients and providers,” said William Pierce, DPM, Christie Clinic’s chief medical officer. “Christie Clinic and Carle have shared a commitment to residents in our region. Our providers, nurses and staff look forward to using the industry-leading Epic functionality to care for all patients.”