Every decision we make as a healthcare organization centers on patient care and the providers making that care possible. When it was time to select a new Electronic Health Record (EHR), we were excited by the prospect of new technology and were equally conscious of our community’s unique needs and how these solutions could enhance care delivery.
Implementation considerations and initial wins
We went LIVE with MEDITECH Expanse in March of 2025, and have already seen significant improvements. Patients and providers have expressed appreciation for the initial improvements, which demonstrate how Expanse can help with advancing care, even with the added challenge of a geographically dispersed patient population.
Established in 1975 under the provisions of the Indian Self-Determination Act, SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) now provides care to 26 communities across Southeast Alaska. As one of the largest Native-run healthcare organizations in the United States, SEARHC is committed to providing quality healthcare that honors the traditions of Alaska Native people and American Indians, while ensuring that advanced medical technologies are made accessible to all.
Southeast Alaska’s archipelago of islands demands a uniquely creative approach to ensuring care accessibility. In our region, transportation could require a plane, boat or even intervention from the U.S. Coast Guard to provide medical support for patients. The innovative use of our new EHR is helping us overcome these challenges while delivering high-quality care to our community. We’ve streamlined social determinants of health processes, maintained steady claims during roll-out, and increased internal referrals by 10% with a new centralized referral center.
Meeting patients where they are
Patient satisfaction has been a key driver for continuous improvement in our organization. Initially, when implementing MEDITECH’s patient portal, referred to at our organization as MySEARHC, some patients expressed apprehension. As a provider, I know firsthand that patients often believe they’re not tech-savvy or that patient portals are too complicated for them to manage. But more often than not, when I enter a patient's room — they’re on their phone.
I like to make the most of this moment by clicking on the patient information bar and having the patient sign up for the patient portal — in a matter of seconds — by simply scanning the QR code. Patients are always surprised by how easy the whole process is. We’ve been able to establish buy-in from our community, keep patients informed, and better connect with patients who wouldn’t normally exercise an active role in their care if not for the ease of MEDITECH’s portal.
Our billing process has also been streamlined. With billing now easily accessible through the portal, we’ve seen a noticeable uptick in proactive payments. Oftentimes, patients are going into the portal to pay their bill before we’ve even reached out. This has had a significant positive impact on our billing department.
Improving workflows and keeping providers accountable
In the EHR decision-making process, our providers were seeking more autonomy and increased governance over their workflows and processes to better support standardization of care. Before adopting Expanse, SEARHC was a tenant on a shared platform along with 15 other tribal health organizations — making any change slow. Ensuring that our clinical practices were current and effective remained top of mind, but updating guidance could take months or even years due to the number of people who had to approve the change.
One of SEARHC’s strategic themes is “One SEARHC. One Practice.” And to that end, our providers wanted to see greater standardization in the user experience and a more streamlined change-management process. As an organization, we wanted to operate independently on our own EHR platform to make optimizations and processes more efficient for our providers and increase provider satisfaction overall. In the months since implementing MEDITECH Expanse, we’ve already seen solid improvements in these areas.
We’ve also been able to keep physicians accountable for billing with Expanse. As providers, our goal is to complete our notes and billing within 72 hours. SEARHC noticed that providers would often forget to do the billing component when submitting their notes. However, with MEDITECH, we are able to integrate billing into the note-signing process. Providers can’t sign their notes without completing billing first. This functionality has made our workflows more efficient and enhanced our ability to meet patient needs.
Implementing MEDITECH Expanse has given our organization the independence and adaptability that we’ve needed to support our patients and providers. Employing this technology has had an undeniable impact on care delivery in only a matter of months. We continue to improve the quality of care in our community by bringing advanced technologies to both our rural communities and into our providers’ workflows.
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