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Improving Her Patient Encounters

Changing Patients’ Lives With the Patient Generate Medical History in an Electronic Medical Record

       Robin Henry has something a lot of busy health care professionals can envy: Comprehensive, quickly generated patient histories at her fingertips.

       She has EncounterSuite, a patient-generated Electronic Medical Record (EMR).

       “It makes my life easier. It makes me much more effective,” said Robin, a nurse practitioner who runs a full-service, school-based health clinic in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

       Robin's patients are teenagers, many from low socioeconomic families living in struggling neighborhoods. Among her tasks are finding out if her patients are engaged in risky behaviors. Getting patient histories through interviews can only take her so far. Teens don't readily talk to adults about substance abuse, sex, sexual abuse and violence in their homes.

       But they'll answer questions on a computer.

       “They're filling them out,” Robin said of teens using the EncounterSuite questionnaires.

       In about 20 minutes, Robin's patients answer questions ranging from eating habits to sexual behavior. Positive responses lead patients to more detailed questions.

       In seconds, EncounterSuite produces a comprehensive, yet concise and secure report for each patient, and Robin can get right to work with her patients.


       “I can be much more effective when I have all the information beforehand,” she said. “And it allows me to tailor the intervention according the patient’s needs. I started working at the school based clinic because I wanted to positively impact the students’ lives.  With EncounterSuite, I now have the time and the critical information about each student to do that.”

       Furthermore, Robin estimates she gets an additional 40 to 50 minutes each day with patients because EncounterSuite sliced her paperwork load in half.

       As a public health professional, Robin has to know the trends emerging in her practice.    EncounterSuite tallies those statistics, and Robin can spot trends in seconds.  Furthermore these statistics enable her to document the importance of her work and help obtain new grants.

       “I can quantify what those behaviors are, and I can support what I'm saying” when reporting to state health officials, who issue the grants that support the clinic.”

       Robin finds it hard to imagine life without EncounterSuite.

       “It's been a tremendous help to me for what I do.”

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