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HealthEast® Clinics are in the midst of implementing a new system for managing your medical information. Commonly referred to as an electronic health record (EHR), this technology advances our abilities and your care.
As the name implies, an EHR means your health record will be accessible by your clinician in an electronic (instead of paper) format.
Our EHR will help us better care for patients. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, EHRs help to:
- Improve health care quality
- Increase patient safety
- Reduce health care costs
- Reduce errors
- Enable individuals and communities to make the best possible
health decisions
You may wonder how we keep it safe. The security of your information is one of our top priorities. As with the paper record, only people who are taking part in your care are authorized to view your medical record. All of the information in your EHR is backed up so that it cannot be lost if our computers crash.
As EHR implementation is a multi-year process; the changes you experience will be gradual. Changes that you will notice include:
- Your clinician carries an electronic "tablet" into your appointment.
When your clinician comes into the exam room, you may notice that he or she is carrying something that looks like a laptop computer. It is, in fact, a computerized "tablet" that is the interface to the EHR. Similar to a laptop, the tablet has the added feature of a touch screen that swivels to lay flat. Your clinician can then review your health history and enter new information right in the exam room.
- You may no longer receive paper prescriptions.
At some point during the implementation, your provider will stop writing new prescriptions on paper and will transmit them electronically to your pharmacy. When that happens, you will no longer receive a paper copy to bring to your pharmacy.
However, if you use a mail order pharmacy, you will continue to send them written prescriptions.
- A change to the prescription refill process.
Though you may have called your clinic in the past for prescription refills, we now ask that you please contact your pharmacist directly, even if it says you have no refills. This direct communication between your clinic and your pharmacy will ensure that your pharmacy has the most accurate information and will reduce the possibility of medication errors. If it has been some time since your last visit with your clinician, you may be asked to schedule an appointment before your next prescription is filled.
- You may receive two bills during our transition.
While we convert to the new system, you may receive two bills from us. You may receive a bill from our old system, which you will receive until it has been paid. Any visit you have after March 19 may result in a bill from our new system. These bills are not duplicates, and both bills are your responsibility. If you have any billing questions, please contact customer service at 651-232-1120.
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