Working with officials at Milan Puskar Health Right, the NTTC organized an event at the Morgantown free clinic to celebrate and call attention to its adoption of HEALTHeWV, a paperless patient records system managed by the NTTC.

J. Davitt McAteer, the NTTC’s Vice President for Sponsored Programs, spoke at the event and presented a plaque to the clinic’s executive director and member of the board. Also attending from the NTTC were Mike Bowman, Director of Computer Information Services, and Kathryn Duda, Assistant Manager of Public Affairs. The event attracted Morgantown media, and news stories announcing the launch appeared in the Morgantown Dominion Post and WBOY-TV. A follow-up story on HEALTHeWV was written by the West Virginia Associated Press and appeared in various West Virginia newspapers.

With a focus is on enhancing health care in rural communities, HEALTHeWV gives health care professionals quick access to patient information, clinical practice guidelines and patient education materials.

“HEALTHeWV will allow Milan Puskar Health Right to attain an even higher level of quality assurance in service to our patients,” says Laura Jones, clinic executive director. “The system is designed for ease of communication among multiple providers, which is a huge advantage for us. Also, it will help us track important data needed for the many federal, state and local grants that we receive in order to continue providing free care to the overwhelming number of uninsured residents in our community and surrounding areas.”

McAteer says Wheeling Jesuit University’s role in HEALTHeWV is an extension of its overall mission to make a positive difference in the lives of fellow West Virginians. “We are proud to manage HEALTHeWV’s technical deployment into the state’s medically underserved rural communities. We live and work in West Virginia and know how important this effort is to addressing the state’s high incidence of chronic disease and improving the health care of rural patients,” McAteer says.

Milan Puskar Health Right is a primary care clinic that provides services at no cost to an average of 1,800 uninsured and under-insured low-income patients each month. It was founded in 1984 by a group of citizens on the premise that every person has a right to health care, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. Originally named Morgantown Health Right, the clinic was renamed in 2003 to honor Milan (Mike) Puskar, co-founder of Mylan Pharmaceuticals, for his generous donations since Health Right’s inception. The clinic has a staff of 23, and more than 200 volunteers. It dispenses millions of dollars-worth of free medications to qualified patients each year.