Health-Care Cards Get Test Run in Knox

By Carly Harrington, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.

Jun. 21–In the world of banking, a person can hand a credit card to any service provider and within five seconds have the requested financial information returned.

Yet in health care, there is no mechanism for hospitals, physicians, labs, pharmacies and other providers to have real-time access to patient records.

“Why is that? It’s not that we can’t use the same piece of polyvinyl card. It’s not that the electrons move differently. It’s the fact that there just isn’t the collaboration,” Johnny Walker, CEO and executive director of the Texas-based Patient Safety Institute, told 25 leaders of large employers and the community Tuesday.

Walker and the regional Innovation Valley Health Information Network are hoping to change that with a cooperative medical information network that will serve as a national model.

Knoxville was selected last year as a demonstration site that would allow patients to carry key medical history on a health-care card. Providers would have access to that information through a secure, password-protected, Internet-based network.

Physicians would have access to such information as allergies, recent diagnostic test results, previous problems and diagnoses and current prescribed medications.

The program, launched in January through a $985,000 grant to the Patient Safety Institute, is nearing completion of the first of three phases in implementing the program.

IVhin is beginning local outreach and education efforts as it looks to begin the second phase later this year. That phase, funded privately with $12 million, will expand the system to patients and providers throughout a 16-county region.

A third phase of the project will continue and expand the network as an active, ongoing, financially sustained network.

“Participation is key from the employers and consumers. They have a unique opportunity to have this rolled out in Knoxville and funded by a national partner,” IVhin Executive Director Alan Hill said.

IVhin, formerly named the East Tennessee Health Information Network, began as a coalition of Baptist Health System, Covenant Health, St. Mary’s Health System and University Health System.

Since 2004, the hospital systems have been connected via private network as part of a system to transmit digital images such as X-rays and magnetic resonance imaging scans from one hospital to another.

The four health-care systems and Blount Memorial in Maryville have already signed on for this project as well as several large payers and physician groups.

The value of such a project, Walker said, can be measured in improved safety and quality of care, thus reducing cost.

For an employer, that means healthier employees, lower absenteeism and increased productivity, Walker said. It also reduces cost of coverage and provides long-term control over health-care expenses.

Consumers, who choose to participate, benefit because it reduces the risk of medical errors and gives the patient control over their own health records.

“The data never leaves the source,” Walker said. “If the patient doesn’t give permission it doesn’t go anywhere.”

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tenn.

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