Katrina Underscores Importance of Electronic Health Care Information Exchange
Posted on: Thursday, 15 September 2005, 18:00 CDT
When the next big earthquake strikes, medical personnel will be seriously hampered as they treat injured Californians and those with chronic medical conditions if they do not have access to vital medical information, including prescriptions.
According to an Associated Press story this week, "Hurricane Katrina destroyed or left inaccessible the medical records of untold numbers of people, focusing new attention on the need for computerized medicine -- health records that follow patients, even if their doctors' offices no longer exist -- so a disaster doesn't mean restarting care from scratch."
Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told the AP on Monday: "There may not have been an experience that demonstrates, for me or the country, more powerfully the need for electronic health records ... than Katrina."
Many California health care leaders are coming to grips with the importance -- and challenge -- of developing computer-based medical information that can be electronically shared across communities and among providers.
The California Regional Health Information Organization (CalRHIO) was formed earlier this year to improve the safety, quality, and efficiency of health care in California through the use of information technology and the secure exchange of health information. CalRHIO is a nonprofit, statewide collaborative organization that now includes more than 60 organizations and leaders throughout the state.
According to the first statewide survey of health information exchange initiatives, conducted by CalRHIO, there is still significant work to do in the state. Just 26 of California's 58 counties have initiatives focused on exchanging health care information electronically across organizations and disparate information systems within a region or community. While a few efforts are operational and several show promise, most are at the stage of defining needs and securing funding.
"We've seen the devastating effect of a natural disaster on a community's health care system in the aftermath of Katrina," said Molly Coye, MD, president and CEO of The Health Technology Center that is managing the CalRHIO project. "We cannot underestimate the importance of the local and regional efforts we surveyed and the role of CalRHIO in expediting California's response."
A complete inventory of projects and contacts will be available at www.calrhio.org on September 21, 2005.
The survey also found:
-- The "information superhighway" to connect healthcare providers, patients, health plans and others across California does not yet exist.
-- The majority of projects now under development will focus on disease management or outpatient electronic health records.
-- The type of medical information to be shared varies by project and includes such items as clinical notes, administrative data, lab results, pharmacy data, radiology reports, and disease registry data.
-- 41 percent of initiative leaders say ongoing funding is a critical success factor, and while 60 percent of their current funding is from grants from foundations, health plans, hospitals and federal agencies, the majority of initiatives do not have a permanent source of funding.
CalRHIO (www.calrhio.org) has additional information on the following projects (counties) and can put journalists in touch with local project leaders:
1. Central Valley Diabetes Projects (3 projects: Tulare, Merced, Fresno), Margie Powers
2. Health-e-LA, Mark Windisch
3. Loma Linda University Medical Center (Los Angeles), Paul Simms
4. Long Beach Networking for Health and Surveillance (Los Angeles), Laura Landry
5. Marin Medical Practice Concepts, Inc., Lynn Mitchell
6. Mendocino SHARE, Greg Wenneson
7. Riverside Regional Health (includes San Bernardino), Gary Levin, MD
8. Santa Barbara County Care Data Exchange, Mike Skinner
9. Santa Cruz Community Chronic Care Network, Eleanor Littman
10. Santa Cruz RHIO, Robert Keet, MD
11. Smart Health (Santa Clara), Seth Fearey
12. San Diego Medical Information Network Exchange, Dr. Steve Carson
13. California Association of Physician groups (statewide), Donald Crane
14. California Rural Indian Health Board (Humboldt, Del Norte, Modoc, Mariposa, Amador, Tuolumne, Calaveras), Susan Dahl
Source: Business Wire
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