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Area hospitals ‘leading nation’ with new technology that links records
By Derek Hodges
Harris Regional Hospital will soon be setting the standard for health care providers across the nation.
The local facility is part of an initiative to integrate the medical records of 16 area health care agencies. The project was organized through the WNC Health Network, an organization of health care providers in the western part of the state. The groups will be connected via WNC Data Link, a project that allows the sharing of patient information.
Until recently, patient information was stored in “silos,” meaning each treatment facility had its own information on each person, WNCHN President and Haywood Regional Medical Center CEO David Rice said. The exclusivity of each provider’s information on a patient made it difficult to diagnose and treat patients who were unable to tell practitioners what their condition was. For instance, if a person was in a car wreck and was left incoherent, the health care provider had no way to learn about pre-existing conditions or medication allergies.
With the new system – which Harris Regional will join this summer – doctors at participating hospitals will be able to immediately get a patient’s history. Included in the reports are hospital/medical visits, test results, previous conditions and current medications a patient is taking.
Doctors will also be able to access the system from their homes. In addition, if a patient is being treated at a hospital that is not part of the network, the physician treating him or her can be allowed access to the information.
Project leaders hope to also link physicians and medical specialists who cooperate with participating hospitals beginning in 2007. Rice said he expects the following 16 medical care providers to be connected to the system by the end of this year: Harris Regional Hospital, Cherokee Indian Hospital, Swain County Hospital, Angel Medical Center, Haywood Regional Medical Center, Rutherford Hospital, Transylvania Community Hospital, McDowell Hospital, Mission Hospitals, Spruce Pine Community Hospital, CarePartners, Highlands-Cashiers Hospital, Murphy Medical Center, St. Luke’s Hospital, Park Ridge Hospital and Pardee Memorial Hospital.
“It is the future of the medical records system,” Rice said. “This system gives us faster access to records and convenience to patients who won’t have to wait as long.”
Despite the ease of getting to the confidential records, security will be tight, said Mike Drake, CEO of AccessPt, one of the companies supplying software to the program. Information will be password-protected and will be encrypted when it is sent over the internet, Drake said.
One advantage to the software the system uses is that medical records personnel will not have to re-enter patient information; it will transfer directly from each hospital’s old software. That will save time and money, and cut down on human error, Drake said.
While there are more than 100 such regional health information systems in the nation, only about a third of them have active systems like this one, Drake said.
“Nothing is more important than the experiment we’re doing today. A lot of people don’t realize how fantastic this is in a rural part of America,” Congressman Charles Taylor (R-Brevard) said.
Taylor secured $2.5 million in federal funds to supplement the creation of the system.
“This project would not have been possible without the help of Congressman Charles Taylor,” Rice said.
David Spillers, WNC Data Link task force chairman and Mission Hospitals chief operating officer, said the project will be very beneficial to patients in the area.
“We think by doing this we will significantly improve patient care in this area and reduce cost,” Spillers said.
Pointing out that even many urban areas have yet to develop such a program, IBM Healthcare Vice President Gail Gulinson said the program is an example.
“It’s not just leading the pack in the state, it’s leading the pack in the nation,” Gulinson said.
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