Felix Carpio has been AltaMed’s corporate Medical Director of Clinical Informatics since January 2010. He is a Venezuelan physician who obtained his degree of Physician and Surgeon at the Universidad Central de Venezuela in Caracas in 1982. He came to the United States in 1986 and completed a Master’s Degree in Public Health at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His interest in HIV care, research, health informatics and quality improvement started in Detroit, Michigan in 1989 where he worked as the Director of Research and Data Management for a not-for-profit substance abuse center. Here he was instrumental in developing an IT infrastructure for data management and implementing a successful HIV / AIDS outreach, prevention and education program targeting Latino intravenous drug users. He then relocated to Los Angeles in 1991 to work as the Program Director for AltaMed’s new HIV Early Intervention program. In 1993, he was accepted at Harbor / UCLA Medical Center Family Practice Residency program where he finished as Chief Resident in 1996. At that time he returned to AltaMed as the Associate Medical Director for HIV services, a position that he occupied until 2010. In this position, Dr. Carpio’s leadership helped increase the program from 400 patients in 1996 to more than 1,500 HIV / AIDS patients. He has been a coauthor of numerous publications and has been a speaker in multiple HIV / AIDS related symposiums and conferences in the United States and Latin America. Emphasis on health informatics and quality improvement started in 2005, when AltaMed’s HIV program got an Electronic Health Record (EHR) donated and he was responsible for its implementation at AltaMed’s three HIV clinics. In 2007, AltaMed started the selection process of an enterprise EHR and he became the provider champion for the effort. In 2009, he successfully lead the EHR adoption and implementation of Nextgen Ambulatory EHR at AltaMed’s 30 sites, 150+ primary care physicians practice caring for more than 150,000 patients. Over the last five years he has been responsible for leading the EHR optimization efforts to maximize the use of the technology and implementing Clinical Decision Support (CDS) aimed at improving quality, safety and efficiency. He has also been involved in the implementation of AltaMed’s Health Information Exchange (HIE), clinical data depository, care coordination systems, and patient portal. Thanks to his informatics leadership he was instrumental in helping AltaMed being recognized as a Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) with NCQA Level 3 certification and with The Joint Commission PCMH accreditation in 2011.
