Secure Electronic Health Information Exchange

Adapted from eHealth Initiative (www.ehealthinitiative.org)

Like Many People You May Not Understand What Health Information Exchange Means Or What It Can Do For You.

This Is A Guide for Consumers.

Secure Electronic Health Information Exchange Provides The Potential To:

Allow your physicians to access the right medical information at the right time.
Allow your physicians to share critical health information so they can make decisions that may impact your treatment.
Ensure that healthcare providers have the critical life-saving information they need in times of emergency.
Give you the confidence that your medical history follows you when you travel to another state.

What is Health Information Exchange?

Health information exchange is a method to electronically move personal health and medical information securely between doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers when it is needed for your patient’s care. With consent, health information will be protected and exchanged under current medical privacy and confidentiality standard procedures. Secure electronic health information exchange allows patients and physicians to make sure that patient health information is available when and where it is needed.

When it Comes to Your Health Time Matters...

Each year in the United States, there are more than 900 million doctor office visits.* And for each one of those office visits, whether you are an established patient or not, you generally are asked to fill out the same paper forms that you filled out on your last visit.

What if your physician had secure access to your personal health information and your benefit eligibility information? What if your physician had the ability to share that information, with consent, with other healthcare providers to ensure quality and continuity of care? That is possible with secure electronic health information exchange.

Having access to your medical information in an emergency is another important reason to move toward use of secure electronic health information exchange.

There are More Reasons for Secure Electronic Health Information Exchange:

Other healthcare providers will have access to your medical record when you are traveling or moving out of state.
In the event of a natural disaster (manmade or otherwise) your vital health information will not be left behind.
Your test results, lab reports or X-ray reports will get to your physician at the right time-when they are needed.
Your medication history or request for new medications gets to the right place when a healthcare professional needs to review the information or when you need to fill a prescription.

Why Do We Need Health Information Exchange?

Healthcare information is gathered and stored in many different places-most often on paper-and oftentimes with no back-up copy.
Even when information is electronically stored, it is typically not connected to other information databases.
Physicians spend 20 to 30 percent of their time searching for information. And 10 to 81 percent of the time, physicians don’t find the information they need in the current paper-based patient record.**
The lack of immediate access to patient health information is the source of thousands of medical errors each year.

Secure Electronic Health Information Exchange Improves Quality, Efficiency and Cost.

Information about your medical history in time of emergency or natural disaster increases care coordination and you get the care you need, specific to your health and medical conditions.
All healthcare providers involved with your care can access the information they need to know, only when they need to know it.
No more clipboard and forms. Eliminates the need for repetitive retelling of medical history each time you see a provider.
Less telephone tag and runaround for test results and follow-up messages, both for personal healthcare as well as for administrative details.
Avoids the cost of unnecessary/duplicate drugs, tests and/or visits.

What Other People Like You Think About HIE.

Americans support the creation of a health information exchange initiative or network for doctors and patients. In fact, in a recent telephone survey more than 80 percent voiced strong and consistent support regardless of political affiliation, age, education or socioeconomic status (eHealth initiative/POS, July, 2006) and said they believe an electronic exchange of health information would enhance quality and efficiency of the healthcare system.

What Your Need to Know.

A key requirement for success of the adoption of electronic health information exchange is ensuring a secure exchange environment to preserve patient privacy and confidentiality. Talk to your healthcare providers today about secure electronic health information exchange.

Why Now?

Secure electronic health information exchange initiatives have emerged as a solution to the challenges in accessing clinical information from various unconnected clinical databases. They allow healthcare providers to find the right information on the right patient at the right time. Health information exchange initiatives create a win-win strategy for patients and their physicians, working together in partnership to ensure a safer, more efficient and cost effective healthcare delivery environment.

Do you want to be involved in the future of Healthcare. Contact Us Now!