In today’s environment, Salem Health and WVP Health Authority believe that health care organizations have an obligation to our communities to ensure information follows the patient electronically from one setting of care to another.
With this in mind, we would like to note and highlight the past, present and future ways we are collaborating on health information exchange between our respective Epic and NextGen electronic health record systems for the benefit of patient care.
We have had an interface for lab orders and results for many years, which has improved the efficiency and accuracy of patient care for both organizations. Recently, we have collaborated again on a similar interface for diagnostic imaging orders and results. The interface went live on Sept. 12. Since then, we have seen 505 orders and 8,395 requested results pass seamlessly back and forth between the hospital and community providers.
These interfaces allow bidirectional information sharing and are the latest step in a partnership between Salem Health and community providers to improve the accessibility of patient information. In addition, Salem Health and WVP are currently collaborating on the implementation of direct electronic messaging to replace much of the current fax communication with secure, importable data and documents.
In the near future, we anticipate being able to supplement this kind of “push” exchange with the ability to securely “pull” data needed for continuity of care from one system to the other using the standards defined by the national Carequality Framework (a set of guidelines and tools that will greatly improve data sharing—learn more here). We expect to have more to announce on that in the coming few months.
Salem Health and WVP look forward to continuing to partner on technology enhancements that facilitate patient care.