Lakelands Rural Health Network- South Carolina

A Clinical Leadership Council (CLC) was formed as an advisory group to the Lakelands Rural Health Network Board. The purpose of the CLC is to provide input by primary care physicians and other clinical providers in the planning process of the Network; to identify common concerns and make recommendations to the Network; and to implement Network ideas and initiatives.

Dr. Gary Goforth, the Program Director of the Family Medicine Residency Program at Self Regional Healthcare in Greenwood agreed to serve as the Chairman of the CLC and be the liaison between it and the Network Board.

Dr. Goforth already had a strong relationship with the majority of the family practice physicians in the network region because many had trained with him at Self Regional Healthcare. Most of the other providers had called him in the past in an effort to recruit new partners.

• The CLC Chairman and the Lakelands Rural Health Network Coordinator personally visited each physician practice in the region to present the concept of the Council in conjunction providing them with Continuing Medical Education (CME) credit for a continuing education program;

• The physicians were promised that there would be no more than one dinner meeting per quarter lasting 1 ½ hours if they participated on the Council;

• Other key health care providers and leaders were asked to join the CLC to provide the group with additional resources. These included a Registered Dietician, Director of the Upstate Area Health Education Center (AHEC), Director of Beckman Mental Health Center, OB/GYN physicians, and nurse practitioners.

• The CLC participated in its own Strategic Planning Session that allowed them to determine what they saw as priorities to be addressed by the Lakelands Rural Health Network. The top four priorities were: (1) to increase pneumonia vaccine rates of seniors; (2) improve prenatal care access; (3) develop patient education materials for health promotion and chronic diseases (hypertension, diabetes, obesity, etc.); and (4) develop an electronic medical record (EMR) system in the region.

• Following the strategic planning session, the CLC developed a physician led EMR Task Force to evaluate ambulatory electronic health record (EHR) systems and recommend products that would best meet the needs of Lakelands Rural Health Network providers.

• Standing orders were established in all the hospitals, emergency rooms, and physician practices for the pneumonia vaccine to be given to any patient 65 years and older;

• The EMR Task Force completed a comprehensive review of EHR systems and issued its recommendation this past fall. Since then the Lakelands Rural Health Network has retained The Coker Group to facilitate a physician-friendly master agreement on behalf of all interested physician practices for an EHR system in the six county Lakelands Rural Health Network region.

• As a result of the work of the CLC and its EMR Task Force, the Lakelands Rural Health Network was chosen to be one of two pilot sites in South Carolina for the new SC Health Information Exchange (SCHIEx) Program.