Delivering Better Care for Underserved Students in School Clinics and Simplifying Quality Reporting
Published on June 22, 2022
For more than 40 years, Kids First Health Care has brought low-cost, high-quality pediatric healthcare straight to schools across Colorado to reach children who need their services most. The non-profit runs two community-based health centers and six school- based health centers in Adams County and serves approximately 4,000 children annually. The middle schools are each staffed by a nurse practitioner and medical assistant. The high school staff also includes health educators and medical front desk staff. The majority of patients are covered by Medicaid or CHP+, while 17% are uninsured.
Kids First Health Care joined Contexture in 2015 and relies on PatientCare 360® to access patients’ records, generate Continuity of Care Documents and to make sure immunizations are included in students’ medical records. Kids First Health Care ensures coordination among all members of the care team, even providers outside the school-based health center.
Kids First Health Care also relies on Colorado HIE services to help them submit electronic clinical quality measures (eCQMs) for use within Medicaid, Medicare, and other advance payment models.
“Being a very small organization without a dedicated IT staff makes it difficult for us to work within the EHR for all the deliverables we need to meet. Colorado HIE supports a lot of the back-end work and we chime in when needed. Without Contexture, we could not do this work at the same level,” Schurger says.
“In the world of everything being electronic and everyone using isolated, separate systems, the benefit of having a place with all the information come together is important to overall patient care. The more pieces of a patient’s prior story we have, the more we can integrate care.”
- Assistant Medical Director, Catherine Schurger, CPNP, Kids First Health Care
