More Than 250 Providers in Northern Colorado Join the Health Information Exchange

Patients in Fort Collins/Greeley and surrounding areas to benefit from better coordinated care when Banner Medical Group physicians access expanded medical information through the Community Health Record.

Northern Colorado is a rapidly growing community in our state. Job rates in the area are at an all-time high, the population is increasing, and the medical community is keeping pace. A new Emergency and Surgery Center was opened by the University of Colorado Health system in 2013 in Greeley and Banner Fort Collins Medical Center campus and hospital will open in 2015. To expand and meet the demands of the growing population, Banner Medical Group, part of the Banner Health system, plans to double their physician count by adding more than 50 providers each year over the next five years.  

Care providers working at one of Banner Medical Group’s 70 locations will soon have access to expanded patient medical information in the Community Health Record available through CORHIO. So when a patient visits another hospital or medical laboratory in almost any part of the state, the Banner physicians can access the details of that visit, including lab and pathology results, radiology reports, and hospital discharge summaries.

“We have a lot of patients that go to other facilities, whether it’s an emergency department, an inpatient facility, imaging, etc. So we didn’t always have complete information when one of those patients was discharged and would follow up with their primary care physician,“ said Eric Mooss, Executive Director of Primary Care, at Banner Medical Group. “We’re really going to see an advantage with our doctors and staff having access to these records in real-time in the HIE. Our ability to see that data through CORHIO will only enhance patient care.”

Less Staff and Patient Time Wasted on Medical Record Retrieval

Because patients of Banner Medical Group often visit providers in both the Banner Health and University of Colorado Health systems, care coordination is crucial between the two systems. Currently, the staff at Banner Medical Group has to call other medical records departments to try and retrieve patient records – sometimes very quickly. “A patient might come to the office and the doctor didn’t know they had recently been in the hospital,” says Mooss. “Sometimes the patient is sitting in the exam room waiting while the staff is trying to get those records immediately because obviously the doctor would prefer to review the records.”

When their connection to the HIE is complete, Banner Medical Group providers will be able quickly query the secure Web-based system to pull up patient records from other providers – even right in the exam room during the patient visit. “The HIE will save a lot of provider and staff time,” says Mooss. “We’ll have more information readily available at our providers’ fingertips, especially when patients are in the office waiting. We’ll now be able to get a better picture of that person’s health and it will help our providers have a more well-rounded view of that patient’s history.”