At the College of Physicians in Philadelphia, attendees saw a demonstration of health information exchange between two of the Philadelphia area’s health systems, using exchange services that will improve everyone’s healthcare.
The demo began with HSX member Main Line Health (MLH) illustrating an emergency department admission of a new patient followed by electronic request and receipt of the patient’s recent clinical history and name of primary care provider from the patient’s health plan. Demo narrator Baber Ghauri, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, St. Mary Medical Center, explained how Independence Blue Cross used the patient’s member identification to pull up all recent claims records and translate them that into a document showing the patient’s past clinical activity, transmitted back to the admitting hospital in the Main Line Health (MLH) system, which took care of the patient and created a summary of care. The demo then showed the routing of the MLH discharge summary to the patient’s primary doctor, Karen Scoles, MD, Chief Medical Information Officer, Crozer-Keystone Health System and a Crozer-Keystone Health Network physician. Dr. Scoles and her office staff received the MLH message into their office system and discussed the use of the discharge document in contacting the patient for follow-up. Through this system, doctors know about patients’ admissions, diagnosis, treatment, and needed transitional steps so that they can deliver more informed care.
Attendees heard testimonials from physicians involved in implementing health information exchange and making early use of it in patient care. Staff members helped to answer questions and explain next steps. Attendees agreed on the importance of physicians and other providers championing the use of the health information exchange among their colleagues