Program aims to connect doctor offices

Dr. Brian Stork (with that name, you'd think he'd be an obstetrician!) said he wants to recruit "the highest quality physicians to our community," and believes his blog is a vehicle to help that cause.

In a recent blog, "Health care technology in my community," Stork discusses Michigan Health Connect, and proudly boasts that West Shore Urology (where he practices) is one of the first offices in the state to use the referral product.

"For years, physicians and patients in our Michigan community struggled with the medical referral process," Stork wrote. "Primary care physicians and their patients were frustrated by the amount of time it took to get appointments with specialty physicians. Specialty offices were waiting, sometimes for weeks, to get appropriate past medical history, lab and X-ray reports prior to scheduling patient appointments. The process was an inefficient one that everyone had slowly come to accept."

Stork said three large hospitals in the state joined forces to create the nonprofit regional health information organization called Michigan Health Connect.

"Once established, one of the first orders of business for MHC was to create a referral management solution," he noted.

To read more, click here.

To read the Tribune story on what the Grand Haven-based health system thinks of Michigan Health Connect, click here.