Hospitals exchanging electronic records

Secure emails ensure that patient information is kept confidential.

Staff photo by Nick Daggy Morgan Groh, RN, enters data into a mobile Electronic Medical Records unit Tuesday at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Kelly Huff, a nurse, talks with Holly Phelps, PCA, while entering data into a mobile electronic medical records unit at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati.

Staff photo by Nick Daggy Kelly Huff, a nurse, talks with Holly Phelps, PCA, while entering data into a mobile electronic medical records unit at The Christ Hospital in Cincinnati.

ENLARGE PHOTO

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By Chelsey Levingston, Staff Writer 1:13 AM Sunday, November 13, 2011

The region’s health community is one of a select few in the country working on step two of the adoption of electronic medical records for sharing patient medical information.

It will allow patients’ medical records to follow them electronically to wherever they go to receive care.

The Christ Hospital and Mercy Health Anderson Hospital were the first in the region to begin last month piloting the next phase, said Trudi Matthews, spokeswoman for HealthBridge. HealthBridge is a health information exchange for Greater Cincinnati whose participants include health systems of Butler County hospitals, physician practices, employers, health plans and public health organizations.

Following step two in the process, hospitals will be able to transmit patient records back and forth to each other and to other health care providers, such as primary care doctors, nursing homes and home health agencies, Matthews said.

Experts say the electronic sharing is important because it will improve care coordination, increase the quality of care, and slow the growth of health care spending.

Currently, patient records from hospitals are printed and faxed or mailed to community providers, hospital officials say.

Christ Hospital and Mercy Health Anderson are testing secure health emails to send patient discharge documents. What the Cincinnati hospitals learn will be passed on to hospitals serving Butler County at some point, Matthews said. The secure, encrypted email communication helps address one of the areas where patient care is most at risk, Matthews said.

“One of the most dangerous times for you as a patient is right after you’ve left the hospital. The chances of something going wrong and you not receiving appropriate follow-up care, too often there’s misses in transitions,” Matthews said.

A continued frustration for patients and families is when the family doctor, for example, doesn’t have all the information another health care provider has, she said. This can lead to duplicated records, for example.

“We’re trying to help solve that,” she said.

HealthBridge was the lead agency to receive a Beacon Community grant of $13.8 million last year to use health information technology to drive down costs and drive up quality. Cincinnati was one of 17 communities nationwide to receive the grant.

The Cincinnati region is a leader nationally in health information technology, with most all hospitals in the region having already implemented electronic medical records or in the process now, including hospitals serving Butler County. The adoption rate of electronic medical records by hospitals and other providers in the Cincinnati area is more than 60 percent, more than twice the national average, she said. That was step one.

Eventually the goal is for seamless, secure communication between the network of providers in the Cincinnati region of patient medical information.

“Now all hospitals in town use electronic medical records, but communicate frequently with providers that aren’t,” Matthews said. “The secure direct email is a way for nonelectronic providers to get information in a quick, timely, easier-to-use way that’s better to use than a fax.”

Christ Hospital and Mercy Health Anderson went live Oct. 14 with a special secure health email to share patient discharge information with other providers. The secure email is a way to share the information with providers that don’t have electronic record systems. For some providers, such as behavioral health, long-term care and dentists, it doesn’t make financial sense to implement electronic records, Matthews said.

Now one of the 75,116 times Christ Hospital patients are discharged from the hospital or emergency room a year, Christ will send an email with their medical information using the existing Epic computer system for its electronic records system, said Alex Vaillancourt, Christ Hospital vice president and chief information officer. Christ Hospital is nearly paperless, using electronic medical records about 31/2 years.

That put the independent hospital in the place to move ahead to secure health email, he said.

“The difference to the patient is the next provider will have access to my chart,” Vaillancourt said.

Colonial, the Hamilton-based nonprofit that offers retirement living, skilled nursing and assisted living, has had electronic medical records two years. But it’s a different system than the hospitals use, said Lisa Zimmers, director of nursing for Colonial Berkeley Square.

Zimmers said they can’t receive electronic records from hospitals. They still receive patient info by fax that has to be printed.

If hospitals could email Colonial, it would go directly to an individual in real time, Zimmers said. That would allow Colonial nurses and doctors to contact hospitals and other providers sending them information before the patient arrives, Zimmers said.

Emails could save them money for paper and ink, get them information faster and increase confidentiality on a secure electronic device, she said.

“A lot of times there’s questions and there can be a hiccup with a fax,” she said. “The health care records have come a long way but they still have a long way to go.”

HealthBridge plans for three more hospitals to start using the secure health email next year.

Step three after that is to figure out how to use electronic records and electronic exchange of health information to improve outcomes for patients, Matthews said.

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