Indian Health Service leaders follow gains from Indiana Federal EHR go-live

As VA continues to deploy the Federal Electronic Health Record (EHR) across its healthcare network, each go-live generates insights to help improve future deployments, ensuring seamless delivery of care for Veterans.

For the Indiana go-live, VA welcomed seven executives from Indian Health Service (IHS) to the Enterprise Operations Center (EOC) on Aug. 24 to experience go-live operations and gather best practices to apply to their own EHR deployment that starts in late September.

As part of the Department of Health and Human Services, IHS provides federal health services to American Indians and Alaska Natives, a patient population that includes many Veterans. The IHS structure is widespread and complex with unique challenges, like health facilities largely in rural locations. IHS also serves non-federal Tribal and urban Indian organizations that are eligible for support.

IHS leaders considered adoption of the Federal EHR, said IHS Chief Information Officer Mitchell Thornbrugh, but determined that the organization needed “something built for our Tribes and communities.” IHS opted to deploy PATH (Patients at the Heart) EHR, which also uses Oracle Health technology.

Armed with the knowledge gained from the EOC observations, IHS leaders will begin deploying PATH EHR on Sept. 26 at its Lawton, Oklahoma, service unit. This unit includes one hospital, two clinics and 600 users. While IHS is not deploying the Federal EHR specifically, IHS leaders said watching the mechanics of how VA goes live with a similar EHR will pay dividends as their multi-year rollout gets underway.

Among the key takeaways from the EOC visit was the importance of interoperability, according to Andrea Scott, deputy chief information officer for IHS. “Having that ability to interface systems… that standardization is extremely important before you go to customization.”

Thornbrugh said he was impressed by “the rigor and organization behind supporting tickets and communication, [and] having clear lines of communication all the way out to the field and making sure that end users and patient safety are primary in the conversations that happen at all levels of the organization.”