Ellensburg Community Health Clinic

Mission Statement: The Ellensburg Community Health Clinic (ECHC) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that has provided healthcare, free of charge, to the Kittitas County community in Washington State since 1999. The ECHC mission is to provide basic medical care for low income people without insurance or readily accessible health care through the professional operation of a volunteer free community health clinic. In accordance with the mission ECHC has a vision, to fill the gap in health care resources for those who are currently underserved. Through its devotion to achieve these ends ECHC is confident it will benefit the multiple areas of industry, business, public service, academia, and society in Kittitas County. Since its inception ECHC has been devoted to helping others so they can in turn positively

Question 1: The Before: What was the challenge, issue or problem your organization was facing? Or, what was the opportunity you were not able to take advantage of before you put a technology solution in place?; Answer: Without the use of Windows 7 and Office 2010, our clinic would be in complete disarray. The challenge that our organization faced was how to create, organize and share patient files while remaining in our meager budget of $15,000 a year. Our organization has two clinic locations in our county, which run on alternate weekends, and patients that occasionally need to go between our locations for various reasons. However, we could not afford the technology cost to have electronic medical records, but we needed to be able to share information between our clinics in a way that complied with the federally mandated HIPAA requirements. This was accomplished through a simple, affordable, but effective system that is dependent upon our ability to use Microsoft products.

Question 2: What Microsoft software have you used/are you using in your organization to more effectively engage your beneficiaries, donors and/or volunteers and/or to make a difference in your community?; Answer: Microsoft Office 2007 or 2010 (Includes any of the following: Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, OneNote, Outlook, and Word); Other: Windows 7

Question 3: The After: How have these Microsoft products allowed you to engage your stakeholders more efficiently or effectively to make a difference in your community?; Answer: The use of Microsoft products has greatly increased our ability to engage our stakeholders as we are able to provide reports and other pertinent information through the use of Excel, Power Point and Word, but more importantly, within our communities, as our volunteers now have access to patient files at both our clinic locations. This allows for our providers to better evaluate the needs of our patients and continue or adjust treatment options as needed. In addition, in today’s world, the use of electronic files is not only common place, but nearly a necessity, and we are now better equipped to work with outside agencies, such as Department of Social Health Services and the Department of Social Security Administration, to meet the needs of the disabled, low income and underserved.

Question 4: What about these products (the features or the way you used them) made them particularly helpful in enabling your organization to expand and improve upon its community impact?; Answer: The Microsoft products that have been of greatest worth have been Excel and Widows 7. Our organization uses Excel spreadsheets at every clinic to track both patient demographics and volunteer information, which is then used for grant and other fundraising purposes. However, Windows 7 has enabled us to construct a simple yet effective patient file system that has allowed for better communication and treatment for our patients between our two locations. I make a PDF, from hand written notes or from a provider using Word, each time a patient is seen at our clinic, which is then placed into their designated file. These files are then grouped by location and saved, and then sent to the other location on a thumb drive to be added to their database via a courier service. Simple, but effective.

Question 5: Please provide any examples, stories or data that illustrate the difference the use of Microsoft software has enabled you to make (i.e., # of new clients reached, new program added, increased dollars raised, increased volunteers, etc.; Answer: Last year our clinic used Microsoft’s Office Suite to design our yearly fundraiser; however, that year we changed events from a silent auction to a Do Not Come Event mailer. This enabled us to serve two purposes, one, our yearly fundraiser, and two, as an information mailer that we sent to a number of new possible donors and we were able to increase our awareness in the community. Our funding has increased through the use of Power Point presentations to prospective partner organizations, such as United Way of Central Washington. Additionally, every year we see an increase in the number of patients seen and approximately half of our patients are new patients. This is due to the use of fliers and other printed material that have been generated through Microsoft Office.

Upload photos or other supporting works/files: ECHC Flyer for Both Clinics.doc

ELLENSBURG COMMUNITY HEALTH CLINIC FLIER.doc

ECHC Volunteer Application.docx

Soap form.doc

Microsoft Technology For Good Contest