Emergency Medical Service (EMS) providers are usually always at a disadvantage when they treat patients. From unconscious to uncooperative, EMS providers have to deal with limited information on a patient from the moment of pick-up to when they drop a patient off at the hospital. But that limitation of knowledge may soon be a thing of the past.
That's because of a nifty technology called Healthcare Information Exchanges (HIEs), which can connect different hospitals and EMS services to provide quick and accurate information on a patient without having to rustle around for paper or navigate the labyrinths of hospital record software.
For example, Michigan Health Connect, Michigan's largest healthcare information exchange (HIE) has partnered with ESO Solutions Inc. to create a hub of patient information. The result: speedier access to patient records regardless of the patient record system a given hospital chooses to use.
And that ability to navigate between different patient record systems is key. As EMSWorld notes, the ability to draw upon crucial information early in an emergency can save lives.
“Now emergency responders treating patients en route to the hospital can have access to the same medical information as facility-based health care providers,” Doug Dietzman, executive director of Michigan Health Connect, said in a prepared statement. “This system can be a life-saver. Not only can emergency responders act immediately on relevant patient information, but they can relay that information to the hospital, so physicians there can be ready with the most effective treatment.”
On a smaller scale, such technology can be used by hospitals to communicate between doctors, nurses and physicians in order to keep up to date on the progress of a given patient, as well as giving hospital staff the ability to clearly input information, and not have to interpret poor handwriting. Additionally, as The Blade reports, such technology could allow patients with chronic illnesses to check in with doctors from home.
The ability to send and receive patient information is, in all likelihood, only going to become more common. But the question of privacy, or limiting patient data to approved persons, remains to be fully addressed.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
