Greenway Medical Technologies donates leading edge Health IT solutions to NKU

• The U.S. Bureau of Labor projects a 47 percent increase in Health IT job needs by the end of 2012.
• The American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) is sponsoring programs to train 10,000 new Health IT professionals.
• The Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) announced $80 million in separate higher education grants last November to train Health IT professionals.
• The Health Informatics graduate program at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) is one of the nation's largest, and the university is home to the Healthcare Interoperability (HCI) Research Laboratory.
• NKU is merging grant funds obtained within the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) with Greenway's solutions to create two certificate programs and related usage throughout the health informatics and health professions curricula.

Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc. is providing its integrated electronic health record (EHR), practice management and interoperability solution PrimeSuite®; clinical trials and research analytics solution PrimeResearch™; and revenue cycle management solution PrimeRCM® to Northern Kentucky University.

While the ONC and other agencies are making major investments in advancing healthcare technology training and an expanded workforce, current university and college curricula lacks leading edge Health IT solutions.

Northern Kentucky University has one of the largest and most progressive graduate programs in Health Informatics in the nation. Greenway's donation of industry leading HIT solutions will allow NKU to merge programs within its College of Health Professions and College of Informatics to provide training for all clinical students, and make the new programs available to other institutions through programs being established by ONC. The university plans to begin the implementation of Greenway's solutions by March 15.

The use of Greenway's integrated solutions is allowing NKU to use Workforce Investment Board (WIB) grant funds obtained within ARRA legislation to create Healthcare Technology and Business Process Analysis programs within the two colleges, which will, for example, make Greenway's automated solutions accessible to 750 nursing students and 200 Allied Health students.

The university's HCI lab will research simulation models of cost savings attributable to healthcare information exchange and interoperability, while a related project plans to create a virtual medical center demonstrating how a fully-functional EHR solution integrates with patient care.

"The interaction of informatics and nursing students using Greenway's Health IT software gives the students the ability to manage illness and technology to the fullest possible extent, just when technology is a critical part of today's healthcare," said Denise Robinson, dean of the College of Health Professions.

"The healthcare industry is increasingly turning to technological innovation to improve patient care, reduce costs and create a national healthcare infrastructure," said Greenway President Tee Green. "Greenway is proud to play its part in creating a skilled healthcare technology workforce through academic institutions. Based on Northern Kentucky University's informatics and healthcare foundations, we are honored to provide the means to expand these capabilities."

Greenway is also represented in an academic Health IT panel discussion at the Health Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference in Atlanta. Titled, "Three Perspectives on the Impact of ARRA on IT Education," the panel is led by Justin Barnes, Greenway vice president of marketing, corporate development and government affairs, and representatives from St. Rose Hospital in Hayward, Calif., and the University of Missouri School of Medicine's Health Management and Informatics Department. The panel is scheduled for February 28 at 2:15 p.m. in room C205 of the Georgia World Congress Center.

Northern Kentucky University is located seven miles south of Cincinnati, Ohio, and is an accredited, four-year public university with more than 50 graduate offerings for its more than 15,000 students.

In addition to the creation of two new academic programs and initiatives within NKU's HCI lab, Greenway's solutions are leading to the creation of new coursework and enhancements to existing studies:

• Health Information Databases, using PrimeSuite capabilities to examine information and technical security, efficiency best practices and real-world demonstrations of the range of interoperable EHR databases.
  

• Health Informatics ROI, using PrimeRCM to develop return on investment metrics for health informatics and develop new ROI models.
  

• Health Informatics Research, using PrimeResearch to enhance the existing course by providing evidence-based studies and clinical trials in masters programs to gather, store, retrieve and analyze data through real-time availability.
  

• Project Management for EHRs, the practical application and understanding of the intricacies of project management combined with the implementation of EHRs.
  

• Healthcare Process Analysis, a partnering of graduate students in the nursing fields to gain informatics knowledge through systems management and technological processes.
  

• HIT Seminar, using clinical and human patient simulations to create a problems-based virtual medical center for hands-on exercises using a fully-functional EHR system to show how technology integrates with patient care.

"The Greenway Medical Technologies gift represents a major step forward in the curriculum of the Health Informatics graduate program in the College of Informatics," said Douglas Perry, dean of the College of Informatics. "Tee Green and his colleagues, understanding the future of healthcare delivery and recognizing the potential of Northern Kentucky University's health informatics initiative, have generously offered their support for the betterment of all."

SOURCE Greenway Medical Technologies, Inc.