Montrose, Colorado is home to one of the most innovative and successful PACE programs in the U.S. PACE- Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) is a fully integrated interdisciplinary model for delivering comprehensive health care to frail older adults who meet the state's criteria for nursing home level of care supporting Medicaid and Medicare enrollees.

"There is a national movement to have PACE Programs grow faster, because PACE programs do a good job of managing dual eligible patients (Medicare & Medicaid). We manage their care more efficiently, keep them out of the hospital, our readmissions rates and medication costs are way down, everything is improving the care of the participants in the PACE program," said Dr. Funk, medical director at the Senior CommUnity PACE Health Center in Eckert, CO. In July of 2012 he testified before the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging in support of the expansion of PACE programs.

PACE program enrollees are provided with care coordinated by an interdisciplinary team of health professionals, this care includes medical care, meals, transportation and social interaction to seniors at central centers (adult day care) as an alternative to nursing homes. This comprehensive service package enables more than 90 percent of PACE participants to continue living in their home and allows participants to maintain their established primary care physician relationship.

"QHN allows me to efficiently keep track of everything going on with our participants in the community so it's much less likely that a test gets ordered or something happens that I'm unaware of, it allows me to follow-up on what's happening to our participants," continued Dr. Funk. "Other PACE programs in the country are trying to pattern our model and one of the first things they ask is how to connect with the regional HIE and can we use you and QHN as an example. The feds want these programs to grow and cover more of these high utilizers of medical system."

Dr. Funk has also found the QHN Virtual Health Record (VHR) extremely valuable in his role as Medical Director at the Horizons Skilled Nursing Facility (SNiF). "I don't always get all the information needed about a patient when they come into a SNiF, especially from hospitals, I can get on QHN and see what happened to them in the hospital, rather than tracking down the hospitalist who happened to care for them, it just makes things a lot more efficient for me."