Move to Electronic Health Records in Works: Medical Professionals: System Would Improve Patient Care

By David Blackburn, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

Feb. 25–Some health departments and area hospitals are slowly but surely moving toward paperless medical records — a process officials say will make health care faster, cheaper and better.

“We feel it is the thing of the future. It needs to happen,” said Lee Denham, public health director of the Green River District Health Department, which serves seven area counties.

Local efforts will be tied to a secured statewide electronic “health care highway” that should be done within five years, Trudi Matthews of Frankfort said.

“What we’re doing at the state level is building the roads so we can connect the information so it can be available anywhere,” said Matthews, senior policy adviser in the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services.

Being able to quickly share information will improve patient care, while less paperwork will mean fewer costs for paper and clerical manpower, she said.

Denham said it is too soon in the changeover process to know much it will cost or how long it will take to complete.

Within five years, 90 to 95 percent of Owensboro Medical Health System’s records should be electronically filed, said Gordon Rohweder, senior vice president of information services.

“A great deal of our information already exists electronically,” including lab results, pharmacy, radiology and physical therapy orders, and doctor dictations, Rohweder said.

“We’re well along the way. We’re making efforts to help local physicians as well,” he said.

The year-old Physician Automation Support Group helps doctors with the process, including finding software and securing the records.

About one-fourth of X-ray and lab reports, dictations and other records at Ohio County Hospital in Hartford are electronic, said Chris Freels, RN and director of quality.

Some electronic records have existed since 1986, but the process began in earnest two years ago, Freels said.

The cost will be about a $1 million, but could be done relatively soon if some federal grants come through, he said.

“If we can come up with the alternative funding, it should be within three years,” Freels said.

Denham said he expects some state funding to help the health department’s change.

“We know we’re earmarked to be included in that,” he said. “They know it is expensive.”

Dr. Dan Danhauer and the Owensboro Pediatrics practice he is in recently signed a contract for making electronic records for six physicians and two nurse-practitioners.

After five years of planning, the conversion of records on about 20,000 patients should be 90 percent done this summer, Danhauer said.

“It takes a ton of time to input the date to make the program work correctly,” he said. He also is on an OMHS committee working toward electronic records that are compatible with other practices.

The cost for the program alone will be about $100,000, Danhauer said.

The process can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for hospitals and anywhere from $10,000 to $50,000 per physician, Matthews said. She said about one-fourth of state physicians have e-records.

The state recently got a two-year, $4.9 million Medicaid transformation grant to develop the Kentucky Health Information Partnership that will form the statewide network.

Forming a secured system connecting doctors and clinicians on a need-to-know basis will involve hospitals, health departments, insurance companies and nonprofit groups, she said.

Health care “is a $1.9 trillion industry that is still largely done on paper,” Matthews said.

Paper records also make it difficult for doctors to quickly access information about a patient and his or her medical history, leading to costly repeat tests, Matthews said.

If a person has to be taken to an emergency room, for example, “rather than show up as a blank slate … there will be some information about you,” she said.

The system is being designed and will take about a year to complete, she said.

It will take another year or so to be operational for state Medicaid recipients, state employees and privately insured people, she said. Eventually, Medicare patients could be added, Matthews said.

“It’s going to take a while to get everybody on an electronic system,” she said. There should be “real significant progress in five years.”

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Copyright (c) 2007, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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