Quinnipiac Internal Medicine, PC

Achieving National Recognition with a State-of-the-Art EMR

I have always been patient-centric in my approach, focusing on preventive medicine and chronic disease management.  The eClinicalWorks electronic medical records application is a powerful tool that afforded me the ability to achieve significant improvements in the quality of care I provide for my patients and to supply the documentation required for PCMH recognition."  -- Edward Rippel, M.D.

The Organization:

• Internal Medicine
• Solo Provider
• Comprehensive health services for the entire family

Problem:

Combining an emphasis on preventive care with a philosophy focusing on personalized service with superior availability and patient communication, implementing an electronic health record solution seemed like a natural progression.  However, as a solo primary care doctor, Dr. Rippel faced quite a hurdle – the substantial cost involved in purchasing the software, paired with a significant practice workflow change.
 
At the time, Dr. Rippel was creating spreadsheets for each one of his patients as a way of tracking information regarding chronic disease management, such as hemoglobin A1C levels in diabetic patients, and preventive measures including mammography and colorectal screenings.

Solution:

After reviewing many EHR systems, Dr. Rippel concluded that eClinicalWorks was the best solution for his practice— easy customizations and the almost infinite ability to make modifications on the fly made the software extremely user-friendly. eClinicalWorks provided robust clinical and administrative capabilities:

• A significant enhancement in appointment scheduling with accessibility from any workstation
• Patients have easy and secure access to lab results, medication refill requests and referral management at anytime via the Patient Portal
• Improved workflows for automatic capture of discrete data from paper and faxed forms

Results:

After installing eClinicalWorks in his office, Dr. Rippel’s success in controlling diabetes to the nationally accepted goal rose to 70 percent, while the national average in primary care practices for the period 1999-2004 was roughly 48 percent.

Clinical and Administrative Improvements:

• First solo practitioner in Connecticut recognized for achieving Level 3 Patient-Centered Medical Home status by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA)
• Additional recognition by NCQA for the Diabetes (DRP) and Heart/Stroke (HSRP) Programs
• Personal and professional growth—one user has gone from not knowing how to turn on a computer to running database queries independently
• Successful performance in getting diabetic patients to goal levels of hemoglobin A1C—starting at 39%, Dr. Rippel reached 70% within two years through the use of eClinicalWorks’ reporting tools

About Dr. Edward Rippel Dr. Edward Rippel, owner of Quinnipiac Internal Medicine in Hamden, Connecticut, is a Board-certified internist providing comprehensive primary care to the Hamden/greater New Haven community. His vision is simple – providing patient-centric, comprehensive care for individuals, as well as the entire population, that emphasizes preventive care measures and chronic disease measurement outcomes.

About eClinicalWorks eClinicalWorks develops and implements health IT, including EMR/PM software, patient portals and community health records for customers of all sizes and specialties. For more information about eClinicalWorks, please visit our About Us page.