PrimeCare Community Health Stays Agile and Strategic with Data

As a large community health organization in Chicago, PrimeCare Community Health is uniquely positioned to support a diverse and underserved community. One of the most prevalent community health needs is behavioral health care.

Few people live and breathe this challenge like PrimeCare Community Health’s Bharathi Jayaram, Chief Behavioral Health Officer, and Ricardo Aguinaga Jr., Behavioral Health Clinical Manager, who are focused on addressing behavioral health needs in their local communities. For them, it’s essential to strategize their operations to continuously address this growing demand. They rely on athenaOne as a practice and revenue cycle management and patient engagement solution to surface the right data, to the right people, at the right time to keep processes running smoothly and inform this decision-making.

Aligning operations and demonstrating success

As a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC), PrimeCare Community Health faces pressure from both regulatory and social perspectives to help educate the public on the value of community health and demonstrate that their providers are working at the top of their licenses. With this drive comes a need for robust productivity and performance data that can tell the story of both success and impact.

Here, electronic medical records serve a broader purpose, centralizing critical data.  “The EHR is the thing you document in, but it's so much more than that" says Jayaram.

athenaOne also helps standardize actionable data,  Aguinaga says. By aligning encounter plans with correlated macros, PrimeCare has achieved a level of consistency across clinical documentation that enhances the quality of patient care by reducing manual burden on providers while also helping improve operational efficiency.

“[These accelerators] have made documentation uniform across different providers,” Aguinaga says, highlighting how different styles and preferences for documentation are captured in athenaOne. This has helped PrimeCare streamline documentation practices not just within their behavioral health department, but also more broadly as a specialty-specific department within a broader organization.

Empowering providers and increasing efficiency

PrimeCare Community Health’s leaders aren't the only ones who leverage this meaningful data. Their commitment to data-driven decision-making trickles down to how they onboard and review productivity with new providers.

In the first 90 days of onboarding a new clinician, the team will review their productivity data to assess encounter documentation time and close rates. By establishing good habits early and often with a metric-based approach, providers quickly get comfortable with their work on athenaOne.

PrimeCare Community Health encourages their providers to complete athenaOne’s free, role-based training curriculum to get to know their work. Beyond that, they have a team of people focused on EHR success and organization alignment. “We have a dedicated EMR administrator who acts as both a guide and consultant,” Jayaram says. The administrator helps them remain agile and respond to evolving community needs by mapping provider productivity data and community health information.

PrimeCare Community Health has also established a cross-functional EMR group, bringing together individuals from various roles to share experiences and learn from one another. This internal alignment, as well as the collaborative partnership with athenahealth creates a robust feedback loop that drives continuous improvement.

Once providers and staff have a handle on athenaOne, leadership also encourages them to leverage all its tools. Aguinaga says.  “Text macros, encounter templates, and patient case snooze are all simple features that can dramatically improve a clinician’s quality of life.” By fostering a culture of support and continuous learning, the organization empowers its staff to utilize the full potential of their EHR, improving both productivity and satisfaction.

The recent introduction of a new behavioral health encounter plan with athenaOne for Behavioral Health features has been transformative. Designed to reduce clicks and allow for customization, this plan has made it easier for clinicians to adapt to their workflows. “It makes the documentation process intuitive,” Jayaram explains. This focus on user experience not only enhances clinician satisfaction but also improves patient interactions, as providers can spend less time focused on navigating the screens in front of them.

Learn how athenaOne can support your organization

As PrimeCare Community Health continues to adapt to the complexities of behavioral health care, their partnership with athenahealth remains a cornerstone of their success. With exciting new functionalities on the horizon, such as group scheduling and digital patient forms on demand, the organization is poised to enhance its service delivery even further.

PrimeCare Community Health exemplifies the power of collaboration and innovation in behavioral health care. By leveraging the capabilities of athenaOne, they are not just meeting the needs of today; they are preparing for the challenges of tomorrow.

Get in touch to learn more about how athenaOne can help streamline reporting and give your providers time back.