Health Care Communities

Health care industry with technology developed to improve the practice of medicine and lower costs. One example is to save the electronic patient record, the life and reduce hospital costs more than one nation and health centers to adopt the system helps.

electronic medical record enables providers to avoid duplication of work, tests and procedures to reduce the time needed for patient treatment received that they need. Do you pay to access patient information at the time of treatment is complete even to improve patient safety, optimize clinical workflow, increase efficiency and reduce administrative costs such as faxes and phone calls to patient information. medical information to the network to provide for safe access to this information.

Three nationally recognized leaders in health information technology recently teamed up to create a multistate health information network known as The NorthWest Health Information Network. Northwest Physicians Network (NPN) of Tacoma and St. Luke’s Health System of Boise, supported by Siemens Medical Solutions, collaborated on this regional approach to bettering patient care and eliminating waste.

“Patient care requires the right information at the right time at the right place,” said Rick Mac-Cornack, Ph.D., director of Quality Improvement at NPN. “Right now, if a patient is in the emergency room with chest pains, that ER needs to get faxes, printouts and old charts from each of the patient’s health providers before proper care can be delivered.”

Through the network, the patient’s history and clinical information are immediately accessible online to both patient and provider-whether the ER is in Tacoma or Boise or whatever other communities will soon be connected to the system.

“While technology has progressed significantly, the challenge is still the same: connect ‘Main Street’ physicians–who represent 80 percent of the nation’s medical care providers–to information when and where it is needed,” said MacCornack.

What took place in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina is an example of how frail paper records can be. Floodwaters rendered many patients’ medical histories unavailable and unreadable. With secure, electronic records, this would not pose a problem.

It is estimated that if 90 percent of doctors and hospitals successfully adopt health care IT and use it effectively, it could net savings of $77 billion annually.

Health care information technology solutions such as Siemens Soarian Community Access encourage secure information sharing. As these networks adopt standardized ways of sharing data, community-based regional health information organizations will become the base for a nationwide system.

Health care information technology has the ability to transform the way people regard their health and the way they participate in the health care system.