The municipality approved Dahl Memorial Clinic Director Shelly O’Boyle’s request to apply for a one-time federal grant for technology system enhancements to streamline the process of creating electronic health records.

“Right now it’s a manual process, so the results come out, they’re given to a provider, provider talks to the patient and then they have to be input by a medical staff member into the system, so this would reduce that need,” O’Boyle said. “So in theory, reduce errors.”

The clinic hopes to use a $42,920 grant from the Department of Health and Human Services to purchase equipment that would be directly integrated into current electronic patient health records.

The Clinic Board of Directors approved O’Boyle’s grant application at their last meeting on June 23.

“This would allow test results to automatically be uploaded into patient charts so it would reduce the risk of error, increase sufficiency and remove the need for staff to perform this task manually,” O’Boyle wrote in a letter to the assembly.

Assemblyman Steve Burnham Jr. expressed a concern over the potential raise in cost to receive care at the clinic as a result of the new equipment.

“I don’t foresee any increase,” O’Boyle said. “Eventually the staff will just have more time to focus on other areas of care.”

The application must be submitted by 5 p.m. EST on July 20 to be eligible for funding.