Stoltenberg and CTC Collaborate to Support FQHCs Move to Epic’s EHR

For 30 years, Stoltenberg Consulting has been providing consulting services and help desk support to hospitals and clinics. As explained in this interview with Kaitlyn Nelson, Director of Account Solutions and Development, Stoltenberg covers the gamut of support needs: strategic planning, implementation support, optimization, maintenance, training, legacy support, and more.

Now, many of these same services are available to health centers in the Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) program, through the Boston-based organization, Community Technology Cooperative (CTC). This nonprofit, which currently serves Massachusetts FQHCs but is starting to expand nationally, gives its clients access to Epic’s EHR and provides go live and EHR end-user support through a partnership with Stoltenberg. In this interview, Karen Serrago, CIO at CTC, explains this work and how the collaboration with Stoltenberg is making Epic accessible and usable for FQHCs.

FQHCs, which serve mostly underserved communities, are resource-constrained, in IT and in many other areas. Thus, they can rarely afford an EHR such as Epic. By sharing an instance of Epic among multiple clients, CTC can significantly cut costs for health centers, with the goal being that as more health centers join, the overall cost goes down for all members of CTC. CTC also takes on a number of functions for FQHCs including holding vendor contracts, reporting, training, UDS support, long-term maintenance, IT support, auditing functions, compliance adherence and more.

Nelson described the integration of Stoltenberg, CTC, and the FQHC clients as seamless. Stoltenberg and CTC meet weekly. Their goal is not simply to manage each help desk ticket as it comes up but to fix the faulty processes that led to the tickets, perhaps by updating workflows, providing additional training or adding more support where needed. Seamless integration means that a CTC client can get real-time EHR support 24/7 “by calling one number” and being directly connected to an experienced Stoltenberg team member.

Both leaders explained that FQHCs are just as complex and individualized as other health care institutions. However, each FQHC is unique. For instance, Serrago mentions, some remote clinics have less than 50 employees while others have over 500. Some health centers have dental practices while others do not, and some are focused on behavioral health programs, which requires very different approaches to patient care and compliance compared to primary care. What is special about Stoltenberg is that they have the expertise in-house and are able to assign the proper staff to support each specialty.

Serrago says that for an organization like CTC, an Epic help desk offering can be challenging to bring in-house given the complexities of hiring a well-rounded dedicated team and the associated technologies. Partnering with Stoltenberg, an Epic-certified help desk, allows CTC to focus on their line of business while knowing their end users are receiving the valuable support they need. Nelson says that together, Stoltenberg and CTC “make health care more equitable for all.”

Check out this interview below to learn more about how CTC and Stoltenberg are helping bring Epic to FQHCs.