CommunityRx EMR program connects patients with neighborhood resources

Connecting patients with healthcare resources within their own community can increase medication adherence and improve quality of life. Researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine have developed a program that uses electronic medical records (EMRs) to connect patients with the health resources in their community.

The CommunityRx program is able to provide patients with personalized e-prescriptions, called HealtheRx, in three dozen health clinics with both adult and pediatric care. Since 2012, the program has been able to produce over 506,000 HealtheRx prescriptions for 200,000 patients. By connecting patients with care facilities that meet specific needs, the programs improves care options while also keeping patients close to their treatment centers.

Patient information is stored and updated on a database of community assets with EMRs. The database includes 20,000 community facilities ranging from food banks to counseling centers and covers 107 square miles of Chicago's South Side.

In a study analyzing the effectiveness of the program, researchers surveyed 458 participants in the CommunityRx program. Results showed that, between 2012 and 2014, 83 percent of participants rated the personalized referrals as “very useful.” One in five participants visited a place recommend by the program. Over the three year period of the study, the program provided 250,000 prescriptions for 113,000 patients. In all health facilities, all but six continued to use CommunityRx after the conclusion of the study.

"To me, the most profound finding and one that motivated me to find a sustainable business model, was that more than half the participants surveyed used their HealtheRx to help connect someone else to community resources," said Stacy Tessler Lindau, MD, an associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago. "I'm fascinated by the idea that we might motivate people to take better care of themselves by offering them a tool that make it easy to help others."