eHealth Innovation Profile: Union Health Center

Maximizing Care Teams and Health IT to Improve Patient Care
Union Health Center  l  New York, New York

Over the past several years, health information technology (eHealth) has been increasingly recognized as a critical tool to support providers and practices in achieving the Triple Aim goals of better care, better health, and lower costs. While eHealth can be effective on its own, a truly patient-centered medical home will consistently use eHealth tools, capabilities, and financial incentives such as meaningful use to maximize quality improvement. Many practices are using electronic health records, patient portals, clinical decision support, and patient registries to strengthen care coordination, chronic disease management, health information exchange, and population management. 

In this “eHealth Innovation Profile," the PCPCC presents a story from Union Health Center (UHC), a community health center that provides comprehensive primary care services to a diverse, low-income population in New York City. UHC has consistently emphasized a strong commitment to adopting innovative technologies, and embracing a culture of continuous quality improvement. One of UHC’s most successful approaches has been adopting an innovative care team model that focuses on chronic disease management through the use of patient registries. In fact, UHC was one of thirty practices recently selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as an exemplary model of workforce innovation through its Learning from Effective Ambulatory Practices (LEAP) program.

While incredibly challenging to implement, UHC’s approach has led to a deeper understanding of the value of population health management (PHM). PHM is a set of interventions designed to maintain and improve people’s health across the full continuum of care, from low-risk, healthy individuals to high-risk individuals.

Read Union Health Center's story.