January 22, 2008
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Centra received a highly-competitive state health information technology grant from the governor’s office Monday to expand the use of electronic health records for cardiology patients in the region.

Centra will use the $150,000 grant to gather outpatient cardiac electronic medical records in a program that is expected to become a national model. The grant money will help produce an automated data mining collection and electronic submission tool, said Ben Clark, Centra vice president and chief information officer.

“This will help Centra track all cardiology patients, both inpatient and outpatient, as part of a national database, making Centra one of the first in the country to do this,” Clark said. “This is a major honor for Centra, and we are pleased to receive state recognition for the work we are doing in promoting electronic medical records in Virginia.”

“We are very excited to award Centra with our highly competitive innovation grant,” said Aneesh Chopra, Virginia secretary of technology. “This unique proposal holds the promise of serving as a national model in the use of IT to improve cardiac care--a condition that remains one of the leading causes of death. By taking advantage of Centra's leadership position in the region, as one of the nation’s top cardiac care centers, and with its recent strategy to promote health IT in the community, we are confident they will succeed.”

The data-retrieval system will link to the American College of Cardiology’s Program for Improving Continuous Cardiac Care program, which offers access to best practices information about outpatient heart care.

Michael Valentine, M.D., Centra cardiologist with The Cardiovascular Group of the Stroobants Heart Center, said: “This is going to allow us to become a model program to tie inpatient and outpatient data together to show long term outcomes that will benefit patient care in our region and across the country.” Dr. Valentine is a member of the Board of Trustees of the American College of Cardiology.

“These modest health IT grants will improve our ability to deliver high quality health care to Virginians through the expansion of electronic health records,” said Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. “This investment continues efforts in the Commonwealth to help providers deliver best care to patients and expand our health IT infrastructure.”

Secretary of Technology Chopra and a Secretary of Health and Human Resources official recognized Centra Monday at a ceremony with the Virginia Chapter of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. Del. Shannon Valentine also participated.

“We live in a special place,” said Del. Valentine. “The expertise within Centra and our medical community offer our Commonwealth a unique opportunity to seek real solutions to the serious issues we face in health care.”