HEALTH INFORMATION EXCHANGE

HEALTH INFORMATION EXCHANGE

Abstract

In this study we try to explore the concept of “Health Information Exchange” in a holistic context. The main focus of the research is on “Electronic Health Record Exchange and its relation with “benefits and history of Health Record Exchange”. The research also analyzes many aspects of “Health Information Exchange” and tries to gauge its effect on “U.S Health Sector”.

Health Information Exchange

Thesis Statement

“HIE is an innovative approach to improve health care sector in U.S.”

Introduction

The Health Record Exchange is the machining data record social, preventive and doctors of a patient, obtained directly or indirectly and constantly updated (Schulte, 2010). Recently, health information organizations (HIOs) across the country have been developing networks to enable health information exchange (HIE) among diverse stakeholder within a given region. These stakeholders may include clinicians, provider organizations, pharmacies, laboratories, radiology facilities, payers, emergency management and first responder groups, and health departments. Although there is some public health agency involvement in many HIOs, the primary use case of most HIOs that is, the way that a system would be used by end users, is centered on direct patient care with the primary goals of improving providers' access to information, thereby improving the safety and quality of care, and reducing costs. As part of this work, HIOs provide the organizational infrastructure, legal underpinnings, and technical expertise to enable HIE. This includes building physical data interfaces between the stakeholder and the HIO, and mapping proprietary database codes from each stakeholder to widely accepted standard vocabularies (Adler-Milstein, et al., 2011).

Although HIOs usually do this work for clinical use cases, public health agencies can also leverage it to help promote a variety of public health use cases. As demonstrated in several jurisdictions, public health involvement in the identification and development of use cases, data standards, and protocols in the early stages of HIOs can help drive this synergy. There are, however, certain preconditions: the requisite data must exist in electronic form, analytics that are appropriate for public health purposes must be created, and the HIOs involved must understand the value of the public health use cases.

More recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) implemented a large program to examine the extent to which HIOs can be used to support bio-surveillance activities. In an example of local government support, the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene led a CDC-funded Center of Excellence in Public Health Informatics. The department was also one of 3 participants (along with New York State) in the previously mentioned CDC bio-surveillance program. New York State has also funded contracts totaling more than $840 million to support the development of HIOs for both clinical and public health use cases.

Discussion

The technical and organizational infrastructure and standards implemented as part of emerging HIO activities could facilitate automated laboratory reporting. Although the legal requirement to report rests upon the laboratories and cannot be delegated, the HIO could ensure that all the data necessary for notifiable disease reporting would be integrated and mapped ...