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Arizona Doctors' Office Quality Information Technology (DOQ-IT)
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) created the DOQ-IT program as part of
the Quality Improvement Organization (QIO) 8th Scope of Work (SOW). Each state's
QIO was required to recruit at least 5% of the state's primary care physicians to
work on implementing electronic health records (EHR) and improve on care management
skills. This consulting service was at no charge to the practice. Throughout the
United States, 4,186 physician offices participated in this program. Over 3,000
of those practices had not yet implemented or signed a contract with an EHR vendor,
395 had a signed contract, and 716 had already implemented a system.
In Arizona,
a total of 78 physicians worked with HSAG's DOQ-IT program. Of those practices:
- 49 had not signed a contract or had a system in place,
- 11 practices had a signed contract with an EHR vendor but had not yet implemented,
and
- 18 had implemented systems and worked on care management processes
By the end of the 3 year program (July 31, 2008):
- 38 of the 49 had implemented a system and could use it to generate:
- medication lists,
- problem lists,
- enter and retrieve laboratory results, and
- e-prescribing,
- 11 of the 49 were able to fully implement their systems and use them for purposes
of care management of patients with chronic disease, and
- 16 of the 18 practices who had already implemented a system were able to implement
care management processes within their systems, which included the ability to:
- identify patients by disease,
- generate reminders/prompts, and
- produce patient specific care plans
As of July 31, 2008, HSAG's successful DOQ-IT program came to a close. HSAG staff
became intimately familiar with many EHR programs, including NextGen, Allscripts,
Practice Partner, Medinotes, Greenway Medical, Amazing Charts, eMDs, eClinical Works,
Spring Charts, Intergy, and GE's Centricity. HSAG staff continue to provide essential
services designed to help organizations leverage their health information technology
systems to improve quality of care, manage patients with chronic disease, and create
an efficient, cost effective organization.
For questions or to learn more about the EHR services, contact us at 602.745.6267
or Ksalamone@hsag.com
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