: Project Infocare is a community-wide health information technology (HIT) project led by Citizens Memorial Hospital (CMH) in Bolivar, Missouri. The purpose of the project is to create a community-wide electronic medical record (EMR) with integrated clinical decision support that is available across the continuum of care to support care providers in providing the highest quality health care possible. The project is currently in its third year. Project Infocare includes a rural hospital, a home health agency, 14 physician clinics and five long term care facilities. CMH has four partners in Project Infocare. ? ? CMH has successfully implemented an EMR and computerized provider order entry (CPOE) in the hospital and in two long term care facilities. These implementations include paperless patient charting, an online medication administration record, and online nursing documentation. The remaining three long-term care facilities are expected to be online by the fall of 2004. Home care is already online with the EMR and nursing documentation. ? ? The implementation project is to extend this technology into the physician practices where CMH patients receive their primary care and into the hospital's emergency department. The success to date of the implementation has depended heavily on the support of physicians. As the project enters this next phase, physician support is even more critical. The challenge is to move from manual processes to an online system without negatively impacting the physician's daily productivity. ? ? CMH will continue to share its findings on methods of successful implementation of comprehensive HIT in presentations at conferences, by hosting site visits from other hospitals and by sharing the results of intensive evaluation studies. CMH is anxious to complete this implementation and prove the worthiness of their significant investment in HIT. ? ?
