The ability to quickly transfer data from one provider to another lies at the heart of the benefits offered by electronic health records. In order to facilitate this transfer among a large number of medical professionals, organizations are increasingly turning their attention to health information exchanges.
These exchanges may come in many forms. While the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT is currently working on developing a system that will connect every provider in the country that is using EHRs, states and even private organizations are stitching together their own health information exchanges (HIE). While these all share many similar characteristics, some have taken different approaches to facilitating data transfer.
For example, Lahey Clinic, which is based out of Burlington, Massachusetts, recently deployed an HIE that relies on a physician web portal to connect all of its physicians and clinics throughout the state, according to CMIO Magazine. Due to the large scale of the operation – the clinic has more than 500 referring physicians in its organization – the need for an exchange was strong.
Peter Dempsey, the clinic's CMIO, said that there were separate databases for lab testing, radiology results, PACS and other information. However, they were able to consolidate this information into one HIE that doctors can access through a single web portal. He said that the system has been a great benefit to their rehab doctors, because they are able to get a complete patient history for everyone they treat.
"They appreciate it because they may get a discharge summary when that patient arrives at the rehab, but the discharge summary is often very superficial and doesn’t have a lot of information they might need," he told the news source. "They can log in to LaheyView and all the data that the patient had during their hospitalization is at their fingertips."
The state of Minnesota has taken a somewhat different approach. Directors of the state's HIE recently developed an ePrescribing component to their exchange system. This will allow doctors to send patients' prescriptions straight to pharmacies, which can cut down on harmful medication interactions and human prescribing errors.
"Providers need easy access to e-prescribing combined with a patient's clinical history in order to provide complete care," said Michael Ubl, executive director of Minnesota HIE. "MN HIE's goal is to provide low-cost, easy, electronic access to clinical data to enable Minnesota's care centers to meet meaningful use requirements and provide complete care to their patients."