Electronic Health Reporter

MedInformatix, the Practice Management (PM) and Electronic Health Records (EHR) innovator that is developing tomorrow’s healthcare information technology today, has marked a significant milestone in the use of its award-winning PM and EHR solutions. In 2016, MedInformatix and Aspire Indiana, a Midwest-based integrated health system, will mark 15 years since they made the switch to incorporate PM and EHR into the behavioral and mental health care settings.

“Aspire Indiana has been at the forefront in the movement from paper to productivity and we are thrilled they chose MedInformatix to be their partner in this mission-critical area,” said Pat McGonigle, Chief Executive Officer at MedInformatix. “We know there are a lot of options in the practice management and electronic health records marketplace and their selection of our suite is as much a testament to them as it is to us.”

Aspire Indiana is a private, nonprofit integrated health system that provides primary care, behavioral health, and substance abuse services, as well as social services that address the social determinants of health such as housing and employment. “There is a big push to integrate behavioral and primary health care, and together we are working to lead that charge,” said Sheward. Aspire Indiana also serves special populations, including individuals with HIV/AIDS, veterans and the deaf.

Aspire first approached MedInformatix in 2001 when they made a decision to upgrade their internal operations to move away from a paper-based recording system that had become time-consuming and inefficient. After a thorough review of various PM and EHR providers, Aspire selected MedInformatix over the competition.

“This was a big move for us,” said Dr. Jerry Sheward, Chief Medical Officer at Aspire Indiana. “At the time there were few organizations in our space who had made the switch to electronic, so there was very little we could learn from our peers regarding referrals or best practices.”

Sheward said that while MedInformatix had solidified its reputation in the radiology sector, they had not implemented their solutions in behavioral or mental health care environments. “They were eager to listen to our needs and adapt their suite to meet our specifications, and this is where MedInformatix really separated itself from the competition. We were able to take their core EHR product and literally make it our own, customizing certain features and functionality to give us the scalability that was unique to our organization. The flexibility MedInformatix continues to demonstrate to us is beyond compare.”

The early results were impressive and, as Sheward notes, enabled Aspire clinicians to focus more on patient outcomes rather than patient intake, as well as experience new reporting features previously unavailable to them. “Because of the productivity we now have, our teams have access to more real-time documentation and patient information than we ever imagined.” MedInformatix has scaled to meet a growing Aspire organization that today includes 509 professionals serving a geography of more than 600,000 persons from 30 locations across Central Indiana.

Both McGonigle and Sheward say the MedInformatix-Aspire relationship keeps getting stronger. Aspire’s for-profit subsidiary, Archeon, has become one of the leading value added resellers of the MedInformatix behavioral health EHR suite. Sheward recently joined a MedInformatix Client Advisory Board, giving a practicing psychiatrist a seat at the MedInformatix table along with radiologists and other medical personal, as well as healthcare administrators, CFO’s and CIO’s. “Jerry Sheward has been a great addition to our board and his perspective on how practice management and electronic health records can be positively incorporated in new areas of healthcare is extremely valuable to our client community and to our company,” said McGonigle.

Added McGonigle, “It has been gratifying to bring the same type of connectivity, data and workflow efficiency to the practice of behavioral and mental health that we have become so well known for in the radiology and ambulatory sectors. Whenever we can break new ground, we are eager to do so.”

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Tim Ryan
MedInformatix Marketing
312.919.3989