LoyolaConnect will reduce phone calls and faxes and improve patient care
MAYWOOD, Ill. -- Physicians who refer patients to Loyola University Health System now can directly access their patients' electronic health records at Loyola.
The system, LoyolaConnect, is the first of its kind in the western suburbs. It will improve communications between referring physicians and Loyola doctors, and reduce time-consuming phone calls, faxes and paper transactions.
"It will be a tremendous physician satisfier," said Dr. Jerold Stirling, chair of the Department of Pediatrics. "And anything that facilitates communications between physicians will benefit the overall health of the patient."
LoyolaConnect will make it easier for physicians to follow patients referred to Loyola. For example, when a patient completes an appointment at Loyola, the referring physician will receive an e-mail alert. The physician then can log on to a secure account and read physician notes, see lab and radiology results or view the entire chart.
The referring physician will receive an e-mail alert when there is a significant event in the patient's care, such as a doctor's appointment, test results, an emergency room visit or hospitalization. (The referring physician decides what events will trigger e-mail alerts.)
"The system definitely improves continuity of care," said referring physician Dr. Lori Weiss, a pediatrician at Primary Care Associates in Berwyn. "I wish that more tertiary-care centers provided outside access to their electronic health records."
Weiss added that now that she has better access to medical information on her patients, she is referring more of them to Loyola.
A referring physician can get more information or sign up to LoyolaConnect by visiting http://loyolamedicine.org/Health_Professionals/index.cfm
To request a login to use LoyolaConnect, a physician can send an e-mail to LoyolaConnect@lumc.edu or call Gisela Cuddihee at (708) 216-1333.
Loyola University Health System (LUHS) is a member of Trinity Health. Based in the western suburbs of Chicago, LUHS is a quaternary care system with a 61-acre main medical center campus, the 36-acre Gottlieb Memorial Hospital campus and more than 30 primary and specialty care facilities in Cook, Will and DuPage counties. The medical center campus is conveniently located in Maywood, 13 miles west of the Chicago Loop and 8 miles east of Oak Brook, Ill. The heart of the medical center campus, Loyola University Hospital, is a 569-licensed-bed facility. It houses a Level 1 Trauma Center, a Burn Center and the Ronald McDonald® Children’s Hospital of Loyola University Medical Center. Also on campus are the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, Loyola Outpatient Center, Center for Heart & Vascular Medicine and Loyola Oral Health Center as well as the LUC Stritch School of Medicine, the LUC Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing and the Loyola Center for Fitness. Loyola's Gottlieb campus in Melrose Park includes the 264-licensed-bed community hospital, the Professional Office Building housing 150 private practice clinics, the Adult Day Care, the Gottlieb Center for Fitness, Loyola Center for Metabolic Surgery and Bariatric Care and the Loyola Cancer Care & Research at the Marjorie G. Weinberg Cancer Center at Melrose Park.