Arthritis Clinic Using HIE to Schedule Patients Faster, Complete Clinical Trials

Denver Arthritis Clinic, a busy two-location group of rheumatologists and support staff, uses PatientCare 360® for new referrals and clinical trial paperwork.

More and more Americans are being diagnosed with arthritis. In fact, according to the CDC, from 2013–2015, an estimated 54.4 million U.S. adults (22.7%) were diagnosed with some form of arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, lupus, or fibromyalgia.

It’s no wonder both locations of the Denver Arthritis Clinic are busy – their 11 rheumatologists can see a total of 200 patients per day. The clinic’s two locations in Lowry and Lone Tree receive referrals mainly from primary care physicians but also specialists such as nephrologists, hematologists and orthopedics. They are full-service arthritis providers, offering X-ray and analysis, testing in their in-house laboratory, bone density scans using a high-tech DEXA machine, and treatments including injections and infusions. 

Carol Rendon, Office Manager, was skeptical when she heard about CORHIO’s health information exchange. She thought “I already have so many other connections between my EMR, my patient portal, this and that – and this is one more thing. But honesty I’m glad we did it. Using CORHIO saves us so much time, it’s really convenient.”

Filling in Data Gaps

One of the main reasons they use the CORHIO HIE is to quickly find blood tests done by other providers. “If we didn’t get all the blood tests, we will jump on CORHIO to see what’s out there,” said Rendon. “Or if imaging was done elsewhere, we can see what’s in the system. And then the providers have more of the information they need to decide what kind of treatment the patient needs or what their care plan is.”

Scheduling Patients Faster

Using CORHIO’s PatientCare 360 web-based portal also allows Denver Arthritis Clinic to schedule patients faster, since they don’t have to wait for test results or other information. They can look it up and often can call the patient back the same day to get them scheduled. “We see a lot of new patients, we get a lot of new referrals so it’s easier to jump on CORHIO, get what we need then we can just call the patient and get them scheduled without waiting for records to come in the mail or fax,” said Rendon.

Completing Clinical Trial Records

Denver Arthritis Clinic also performs clinical trials for new arthritis-condition related drugs. “The Clinical Research team also uses CORHIO for patients that are in their studies – they make sure if a patient says they were admitted to the hospital, they will go log on to see why the patient was there, what was done, so that they can have those records for their reporting requirements,” said Rendon.

“CORHIO has helped us out a lot – it saves us time and multiple phone calls to get records and patient information,” said Rendon. “Once we went live with a few of our employees, I quickly started hearing from other staff that they wanted access, too!”

To learn more about PatientCare 360, please visit our web page.