Over the last four months, the Chicago Health Information Technology Regional Extension Center (CHITREC) has long, hard look at what we were offering through our website. Now more than two years after being founded, we had collected significant resources and lessons on how (and how not) to achieve Meaningful Use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). We realized that our presence on the Internet wasn’t reflecting how wise we had become.
Hence, we proudly introduce you to all new and much improved chitrec.org.
The website has been designed to contain four major sections: our Programs, Library, News and Events. The Programs sections outlines the various ways we can help doctors who are on the path to Meaningful Use through the Medicare & Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs. We also provide information on new partnership with the Illinois Health Information Exchange, which has become the state’s official mechanism for securely exchanging patient health data with other providers. Our Library describes different services providers commonly need while trying to implement an EHR as well as provides Health IT 101 to help make sense of the various buzzwords and topics that regularly give providers headaches. And our News and Events sections were redesigned to provide more information about things you need to know. These sections will be updated regularly with more links, more opportunities to learn and participate, and only the best information we have put together.
We didn’t stop there. Along with the sophistication of our Meaningful Use education and programming, we have been hard at work developing relationships with the community, spearheading groundbreaking EHR research and contributing to the creation of a health IT workforce here in the city. We have added Facebook to more regularly connect with the 1,600 and counting providers we work with and their staff members.
Oh, and we created this blog to keep you informed about where our organization is going. We intend to continue to serve as THE authority on Meaningful use and Health IT in the city of Chicago. It only makes sense that we keep you involved. At least monthly, posts will be added to our blog on topics such as new initiatives here at CHITREC, analyses of state and national HIT regulations, trends in patient engagement and other hot topics, and much more. We also write a monthly column on page 6 of the Chicago Medical Society’s Chicago Medicine magazine and will share those stories with you here.
And, of course, this is about community, so if you have feedback or topics of interest that you want us to include on our website, don’t ever hesitate to contact us at [email protected].
Adam Williams
Outreach manager, CHITREC