If we’ve learned anything since 2020, it’s that the unthinkable can happen. For years now, Health Centers were at risk of losing funding, but this year a three-year mandatory initiative was passed with additional “Health Related’ funding opportunities. Finally, the resources are being guaranteed to ensure the future success of Community Health Centers. 

Just as what seemed to be a never-ending year was coming to a close, science stepped up to make history. On December 11, 2020, thanks to Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to enable distribution to begin for the first COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer/BioNtech. Then on December 18, 2020, the FDA administered another EUA for the second COVID-19 vaccine from Moderna. 

In NextGen, “hidden gems” are considered features that are not obvious points in the workflow but add value and efficiency. In some cases, “hidden gems” are not truly hidden, they are simply forgotten because they are not used frequently. In this article, we highlight 15 NextGen EHR features that can improve users' daily workflows to focus on patient care.

The NextGen Electronic Dental Record (EDR) is an asset for Community Health Centers that provides improved collaboration and maximizes patient data within your practice. Virtually everyone in your organization uses your electronic system(s) to capture, share, and leverage data—from clinical information, to protected health information (PHI), to financial/claims data. 

Community Health Centers (CHCs) can often find vaccine management a struggle in their practices. Maintaining vaccine supplies may be a challenge to ensure they are administering safe vaccines to the communities they serve. Vaccines prevent diseases that can be very serious. With flu vaccines, immunizations, and even the COVID-19 vaccine, health centers are looking for new ways to Vaccinate with Confidence. In hopes to reduce vaccine waste, loss, and help the bottom line, health centers are turning to the AccuVax Vaccine Management System.

Health Centers continually face evolving cyberthreats that put patients and employees at risk.  To assess cybersecurity, health centers should view it as a patient safety enterprise risk and instill it into the existing environment and the organization’s daily governance. To ensure your organization protects patient security and privacy while delivering high-quality care, it is important to align patient safety and cybersecurity initiatives within an organization.  

After months of treating patients through Telehealth, we now have a clearer idea of how to treat patients electronically. Given the new normal, we have learned that each patient visit is unique. Patients can be seen for symptom triage, care for chronic conditions, lab results, lifestyle management, post-operative treatments, treatment protocols, behavioral health, group education consults, after-hours care, and more. Telehealth is a bit different from the picture to the right from 1954, but as technology evolves, we’re essentially moving in that direction.

Presently in a pandemic, community health centers are reimagining and adjusting how they assess and address patient Social Determinants of Health.  The Protocol for Responding to and Assessing Patient’s Assets, Risks and Experiences (PRAPARE) is a national effort to help health centers collect the data needed to better understand and act on patient’s social determinants of health.   Here we will discuss and demonstrate how to use the PRAPARE tool in NextGen to align with national initiatives proposed under Meaningful Use, Clinical Coding ICD-10, and Health Centers’ Uniform Data System (UDS).