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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIn December and January, Eli Lilly and Co.’s four employee health clinics became some of the first clinics to be
able to send to and retrieve from the Indiana Network for Patient Care, a database of patient medical records from five local
hospital systems. To do that, Indianapolis-based Lilly hired Fort Wayne-based Medical Informatics Engineering to build a custom-made
electronic medical record system that also syncs up with the clinics’ scheduling software. The
process took two years, said Dr. Kristine Courtney, Lilly’s senior director of
corporate health services.
IBJ: Most Lilly employees
have their own private doctors, even though they occasionally use the Lilly health
clinics. Is that why it was so important for Lilly’s employee clinics to be able to exchange medical
records with local hospitals and their physician networks?
A: We wanted to
be sure other [health care] providers had access to our information and also as a cost-containment measure.
IBJ:
How can swapping medical records electronically save money for Lilly?
A: We just know as practitioners
that you really need data when you see your patient, and if it’s not there, you tend to order it quickly.
IBJ:
What other features of Lilly’s new electronic record system do you think will be advantages over the old system?
A: Although this is not a traditional health record, it does allow patients to view existing records,
make appointments, list all their prescriptions. And we’re able to use the system to reply to
a patient.
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