Mar 22
2014
Study: Health Information Exchange May Reduce Hospital Admissions
Received the following study recently that is quite interesting; thought it worthy of sharing:
Emergency department physicians are less likely to admit patients to the hospital when they have readily available electronic access to those patients’ health records, Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have found.
Its study, published March 12 in Applied Clinical Informatics, illustrates the value of combining multiple providers’ digital patient charts into a single source for health care providers – particularly in an urgent setting like the emergency department. With information such as previous test results, prescriptions and other patient history immediately accessible, providers are able to treat patients more efficiently and effectively than when they lack that data.
“New York State has made significant investments in health information exchange,” said Dr. Joshua Vest, an assistant professor at Weill Cornell and the lead author on the study. “Our study shows that providing physicians, nurses and allied health care professionals such as physician assistants real-time access to community-wide, longitudinal health records does in fact benefit patients.”
With federal and New York State government backing, hospitals and medical practices across the state are investing millions of dollars to make health records sharable among physicians when they need the information. The digitized charts contain doctors’ notes from every patient visit; family medical history; immunization records; lab results; medication history; allergies; reminders for preventative care and more.