California Leads the Way with Health Info Exchanges
California has become one of the major hotbeds of IT and software products with Silicon Valley taking center stage as the famous epicenter. San Francisco is at the center of biomedical innovations. Northern California is one of the leading hubs of health information organizations. The health innovations are continuing to expand by solving a variety of issues.
The Problem Health Information Exchanges Seek to Solve
Medical records have traditionally consisted of stacks of paper records. These records were not easily searched without a cursory scan by a doctor. Sharing records requires faxing or mailing. Electronic Medical Records, or EMR, were intended to facilitate information sharing between health service providers, insurance companies and the government. However, this market has led to a large number of EMR providers and fragmented information systems. There is hardly a framework for electronic medical records and their transmission.
Health information organizations, or HIO, share an interoperable information exchange that can transmit health records between participating medical service providers. This exchange can be utilized with everything from hospitals to doctors’ offices to specialists. There are eight operational health information organizations in California. Eight more are in the process of being set up. HIO covers more than half of California’s counties, and a large percentage of its population.
California built flexibility into its HIO network. California’s HIO network allows healthcare providers to choose the services they’ll use for the sharing of personal health records, delivery of lab results and immunization reports. They can choose from up to five vendors while still participating in the HIO. By giving health service providers choices in vendors and services, the adoption rate of the HIO will be increased by service providers in their region.
What the HIO Is Doing
Health information organizations are developing a common set of policies, business practices and technology to create a secure, efficient and reliable way to share medical information between regional grids.
Health information organizations seek to create a standard framework and technology base for the sharing of health records. If California succeeds in this sharing network for digital health records, it will lead the way for the rest of the nation.
Edited by
Cassandra Tucker
