Health information exchanges support disaster preparedness
During Katrina, some patients who were evacuated from hospitals were given the original copies of their medical records to take with them. "We want to see the end of the ‘milk crate method' of managing medical records, in which people with complicated histories need to transport their paperwork everywhere they go," Banger says.
The SERCH project revealed some variability in state laws regarding patient consent for exchange of data, which would have to be reconciled to establish regional exchanges for use during disasters. In addition, the states vary in the data models they use and the degree to which they have implemented exchanges. The need for a coordinated response through a lead agency was recognized, along with opportunities to work with local emergency management agencies during those incidents. The consortium developed five recommendations that, if adopted, would allow the participating states, or any states wishing to exchange data during a disaster, to integrate disaster planning and health information exchange efforts
eHealth Initiative
Driven by concerns about the cost and quality of healthcare, a diverse group of stakeholders in the healthcare industry joined together about a decade ago to address key issues in the industry. Informal at first, the group evolved into the eHealth Initiative and now counts more than 200 organizations as members. The members include hospitals, insurance companies, academic institutions, communication companies and pharmaceutical firms. The common bond is the desire to use technology effectively to improve healthcare.
"Many of our member organizations are competitors, and the agendas of our various stakeholders differ, but there is also a great deal of agreement on common goals," says Jennifer Covich, CEO of eHealth Initiative. "We serve as a convening organization that brings together groups that might not otherwise be working together."
Among the major goals of eHealth Initiative are the use of data and analytics to improve healthcare, development of IT infrastructure to support accountable care, facilitating data exchange and technology for patients with chronic disease.
In a recent study, funded by the California HealthCare Foundation, eHealth Initiative found that disadvantaged populations with diabetes benefit from use of mobile devices to manage their disease. Another study explored sustainability issues for health information exchanges. Although several hundred HIE initiatives have been launched, many are not yet operational and have not established funding sources.
"At the top of our agenda now is to find ways in which we can facilitate the effective use of the large body of data that our membership has available," Covich says. "We are working at the national level to carry out research, education and advocacy." By coordinating their efforts and leveraging their collective data, members hope to eventually be able to monitor and respond to a wide variety of healthcare issues from the spread of communicable diseases to improved management of chronic conditions.
Vendor-neutral archives
The data storage needs for health information exchanges (HIEs) provide many opportunities for content management systems and other infrastructure elements. According to IDC Health Insights, the demand for vendor-neutral archives (VNAs) is expected to continue its growth in 2013, because of the need to integrate information from multiple systems both within a single environment, such as a hospital, and across different communities.
In late 2012, GE Healthcare announced its latest vendor-neutral archive, the Centricity Clinical Archive. The archive manages unstructured content such as images, reports and documents, updating the content to a central repository. It supports virtual server deployment, and cloud storage provides backup for disaster recovery.
A master patient index associates disparate records, and a clinical viewer provides a consistent interface through which users can access all the clinical content.
The Centricity Clinical Archive is being used in Canada by the Southwestern Ontario Digital Imaging Network to store records from more than 3 million examinations each year. The network spans 62 hospitals and systems from seven different vendors. It allows the convenience of a single point of access to patient records.