CHICAGO -- With support from individual and corporate members, the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) presented a check for $38,153 to the Common Ground Health Clinic in New Orleans. HIMSS members, totaling more than 20,000 individuals and 300 corporations, came together to provide donations of funds, supplies and health IT software and consulting for the clinic.

AT-A-GLANCE

* HIMSS received just over $38,000 in donations for Common Ground Health Clinic. McKesson donated $20,000, which is the largest monetary donation received.

* AllScripts donated EMR software.
* The clinic's physician mentor, Dr. Jim Morrow, a 2004 Ambulatory Care Davies Award recipient, continues to work with the clinic on health IT solutions.

The HIMSS Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the Society dedicated to furthering healthcare IT professions, managed all monetary and acquisition of software and affiliated services donations to Common Ground Health Clinic. HIMSS presented the check on April 25 to Ravi Vadlamudi, MD, MPH, volunteer medical director, and Anne Mulle, family nurse practitioner, at the clinic.

"All of us at HIMSS wanted to ensure that the work of Common Ground Health Clinic could continue in New Orleans," said H. Stephen Lieber, HIMSS president/CEO. "We recognize the effort our members made to provide the needed assistance to this clinic will help improve the delivery of healthcare as well as the use of technology in the local community."

"Common Ground Health Clinic graciously accepts all of these donations and we look forward to the continued collaboration with HIMSS and other donors," said Dr. Vadlamudi.

Since the early 1990s, the HIMSS Foundation has awarded more than $150,000 in scholarships to more than 45 exceptional students. In addition, the Foundation also administers the HIMSS Katrina Phoenix project funding to rebuild medical practices devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The clinic was founded after the hurricane hit but is now part of the Katrina Phoenix project at HIMSS. With duplicate items donated by one of the HIMSS exhibitors, Common Ground Health Clinic shared these products with Dr. Robert T. Kenny's medical practice in New Orleans, a location transitioning from paper to digital paper records through the HIMSS Katrina Phoenix project.

In addition, eight other practice sites to-date in Louisiana have benefited from the HIMSS Katrina-Phoenix Project with three practices in various stages of EHR installation or implementation. Louisiana Health Care Review, the Medicare Quality Improvement Organization for Louisiana, has played an instrumental role in the Katrina-Phoenix Project through the provision of its consultative services for the medical practices, vendor coordination, and ongoing follow-up to assure project success.

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