$9.4 Million To Go To Electronic Health Records System in RivCo Jails

By City News Service:

The Board of Supervisors Monday approved $9.4 million in appropriations for the implementation and maintenance of an electronic health records system in Riverside County detention facilities.

In a 4-0 vote, with Supervisor John Tavaglione absent, the board awarded a $5 million contract to Birmingham, Ala.-based NaphCare Inc. and set aside another $4.4 million in funds to support ongoing costs associated with the system over the next decade.

The “sole source” agreement with NaphCare was authorized without competitive bids being sought. To save time and money, IT officials opted to adopt the vetting process used by Orange County during its search for a vendor to construct a digital health records platform for the OC’s facilities, According to Christopher Hans, interim director of the Riverside County Information Technology Department.

“During a site visit to Orange County, the impressive NaphCare system was observed in use and was determined to offer efficient workflow and ease of use features that cater to the correctional health inmate population, whereas the other vendors did not offer this specialty,” Hans wrote in documents posted to the board’s policy agenda.

According to county officials, the NaphCare system will meet all federal healthcare guidelines and will offer authorized users the opportunity to access records from remote locations in determining appropriate treatment options.

“Electronic health records is a systematic collection of electronic health information about an individual patient or population,” according to the agreement between the county and NaphCare. “Is is a record in digital format that is ... capable of being shared across different healthcare settings.”

The system will be deployed in the county’s five jails and two juvenile detention facilities.

Meeting the psychological and physical health needs of the local inmate population has, in recent years, been the source of ballooning expenses in the county budget. Officials have emphasized the need for more efficiency.

NaphCare’s system is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2015.