Dear Fenway Health Patients and Clients,
As you may have already heard, on December 1, 2022, Fenway Health will transition our electronic medical record system to Epic and the MyChart patient portal. We are excited to utilize this patient-centered platform, which will provide secure and robust tools and resources to improve documentation and integration for providers, while empowering our clients and patients to take a more active role in your health and health care. You can read more about the new Epic system and MyChart patient portal here.
The switch to this new system will result in great improvements to overall user experience for Fenway Health patients and clients. This will include greater access to view your medical records, and better tools to connect and communicate with your care team. It will also be easier to view clinical information such a lab results, schedule appointments, request medication refills, pay bills, and more.
Fenway Health is working diligently with Epic to ensure that this software, which is used by health centers around the country, is tailored to meet the needs of Fenway’s diverse patient and client community. This includes system customization to allow for the collection and visibility of pronoun data in patient electronic health records (EHRs).
Unfortunately, some of the data from our previous EHR does not transfer correctly into Epic. Because of this, our patient services team will be recollecting patient identity data in the coming weeks. During your next visit to Fenway Health, you may be asked questions regarding the name and pronouns you use. We understand that this may be confusing, stressful, and frustrating, and we ask that you bear with us as we work to ensure that our records remain as accurate as possible moving forward.
Ultimately, MyChart will empower users to have much more control over their own records. Once you receive your MyChart access, you will be able to login to update certain demographic information such as name, gender identity, sex assigned at birth, sexual orientation, marital status, race, and others. Some of the language and options you see at the launch of MyChart may not be what you are used to; we are working with Epic to reword some of these fields to more inclusive language, and to add pronouns as an editable data field.
Please keep an eye out for additional guides to using MyChart that we will be providing specifically for trans and gender-diverse patients and clients.
This will be a period of transition for Fenway Health as we rollout these changes, and we will continue to find ways to improve our systems as everyone gets used to the new system. The implementation of Epic and MyChart will result in major long-term improvements to the way we are able to collect patient data, and will empower our patients and clients to access their own information like never before. We humbly ask for your patience and understanding as we navigate this change together.
As always, welcome your feedback and questions. Please feel free to get in touch with us by emailing [email protected].