The Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center (GCREC) is a program within the UTHealth School of Biomedical Informatics that provides health information technology (HIT) and care transformation services to medical practices in Southeastern Texas and the Rio Grande Valley. The GCREC region encompasses almost 11 million patients, comprising 44% of the Texas population. RECs were originally funded by the Office of the National Coordinator to promote the adoption, implementation, and meaningful use (MU) of electronic health records (EHRs) in the underserved, primary care provider settings. The GCREC has successfully helped over 2235 clinicians achieve their Meaningful Use goals and qualify for financial incentives. Currently, the GCREC has evolved to provide professional HIT consulting to clinicians and hospitals on a fee-for-service basis. The GCREC has a proven track record of working with Texas clinicians, FQHCs, and small hospitals to improve practice workflows, patient care, and patient safety through the optimized use of EHRs. Consultants provide project management assistance to enable practices to use the EHR to meet MU and Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) guidelines, as well as utilize quality measures both for regulatory reporting and to improve preventive care delivery. GCREC is working closely with providers to educate and align for preparation to attest to MIPS guidelines for the upcoming years.
Our consultants are backed by years of experience and training, including the following professional designations:
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Susan Fenton, PhD, RHIA, FAHIMA 
Susan Fenton, PhD, RHIA, FAHIMA, joined UT Health School of Biomedical Informatics (SBMI) on June 1, 2013 as an assistant professor of biomedical informatics. She came to SBMI from Texas State University in San Marcos, where she was an assistant professor and co-director of the Institute for Health Information Technology. In August 2014, Dr. Fenton transitioned into the role of associate dean for academic affairs, taking over the management responsibilities for the Office of Academic Affairs and helping the school acquire health informatics and information management education accreditation from CAHIIM for the applied health informatics program. |
Jiajie Zhang, PhD
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LaSonya Knowles, MS 
LaSonya Knowles is the Clinical Informatics Consulting Manager for the Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center (GCREC). In this position, she manages the consulting team for the gulf coast region. She holds a Masters of Science in Health Informatics from the University of Texas Health Science Center Houston and a Bachelors of Business Administration in Information Systems from Prairie View A&M University. Prior to joining the GCREC, LaSonya worked for MD Anderson Cancer Center for 10 years. She has experience in various areas of information technology, informatics and project management in the healthcare industry and brings 18 years of experience to the Regional Extension Center. |
Jiajie Zhang, PhD, is the dean and Dr. Doris L. Ross Professor at UTHealth School of Biomedical Informatics (SBMI). He serves as director of the National Center for Cognitive Informatics and Decision Making in Healthcare, for which he is principal investigator of the Strategic Health IT Advanced Research Projects Program’s patient-centered cognitive support initiative. Zhang has spent the past two decades conducting research in biomedical informatics, cognitive science, human-centered computing, decision making and information visualization. He has authored more than 120 journal articles, book chapters, and peer-reviewed proceedings papers. As an educator, he has taught courses in human-computer interaction, electronic health record usability, information visualization and technology-mediated social dynamics.
Megan Crossan is the Program Coordinator for the Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center (GCREC). She holds a Bachelors of Science in Marketing from the University of Houston at Clear Lake. She has been with the GCREC since September 2010. In this position, she manages the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) database for tracking providers’ milestone progress. She is responsible for tracking subcontractor/vendor's progress towards project objectives. She is also the financial analyst for the program.
Sheila Banyai is a Health Information Technology Consultant for the Gulf Coast Regional Extension Center (GCREC). In this position, she consults providers in achieving meaningful use and is the Security Risk Assessments lead for GCREC. She holds a Bachelors of Science in Computer Engineering from University of Houston Clear Lake. She is also certified in Technical/Software Support Staff Health Information Technology Professional by American Health Information Management Association. Sheila Banyai has more than 20 years of network/communication experience attained through working with ExxonMobil, several NASA Contractors, and the U.S. Navy.
