Father Joe's Villages and McKesson's EHR Help Improve Care for Underserved Communities

Introduction

Father Joe's is a non-profit corporation that consists of several facilities offering a variety of services and programs to the homeless. Father Joe's Villages in San Diego, Calif., and McKesson's Practice Partner(R) Patient Records software, an advanced electronic health record (EHR) solution, are helping improve care for thousands of indigent patients using the donated software from McKesson. The Practice Partner EHR is helping Father Joe's to improve medical record documentation and promote health screenings. It also enables the medical staff to develop benchmarking reports for areas such as prenatal care, psychiatric care, and diabetic and asthmatic disease management.

Methods

Father Joe's relies on more than 200 volunteers to help deliver care to the underserved. The complexity of this patient population, coupled with volunteer providers, requires an easy-to-use, intuitive system. After a one-hour orientation, provider volunteers are able to document visits, place orders and write prescriptions in Practice Partner software the same day. "With the software, our volunteers are also better able to document, manage and treat chronic illness and other conditions that would normally land our patients in emergency rooms," adds Dr. McCahill. "Knowing that McKesson is helping underserved families, young children, men and women who are in need of healthcare is very satisfying and an example of our commitment to the well-being of communities nationwide," said David Henriksen, vice president and general manager of McKesson's Physician Practice Solutions.

Results

Based in part on the success at St. Vincent de Paul Village, the Practice Partner Patient Records software has been successfully deployed at a similar clinic at another one of Father Joe's facilities that serves the underserved, called Martha's Village and Kitchen, in Indio, Calif., a desert community northeast of San Diego. The Practice Partner EHR is also used at a unique mobile clinic concept -- consisting of a 40-foot-long truck fully outfitted with exam rooms, which travels to churches at various local communities throughout the San Diego area to provide medical services at no charge to the homeless and uninsured.