New e-record sharing helps senior care
Health care providers who are part of the Rochester RHIO electronic record-sharing network can now see if their elderly patients are receiving meals from Meals on Wheels, elder care case management or other non-medical, county-funded services from 50 area elder care agencies.
The coordinators believe this is the first such e-record sharing nationwide. The records could help hospitals, doctor’s offices and community agencies better coordinate care, especially when patients go home from a hospital or rehab facility.
Rochester Regional Health Information Organization, or RHIO, a nine-county network that shares medical records online, announced Tuesday that it’s collaborating with Monroe County Office for the Aging and PeerPlace Networks software company to share community care summaries for about 19,000 Monroe County seniors. This information has existed in a PeerPlace electronic system since 1998.
PeerPlace includes family caregiver information, so now hospitals can look up how to reach a patient’s spouse or adult child, said Lorre Anderson, PeerPlace Networks director of marketing.
To be included in the RHIO, patients must sign consent forms with their health care providers.
The new record sharing is one-way only; elder care agencies can’t see patients’ medical records. The RHIO tracks usage by its 2,500 authorized network users, including 750 physicians.
Senior patients often don’t recall or have with them the name of agencies providing services to them. “They’re aware of ‘the nice lady who comes out to check on me once in a while,’” said Corinda Crossdale, director of Monroe County Office for the Aging.
Jane Shukitis, vice president of home and community-based services for Unity Health System, called the growing RHIO a great start. If one of the 80 or so county-supported seniors at Unity’s social adult day services sites goes to an emergency room, the hospital staff could look up and learn more about the person’s needs. That also can help determine if a patient can safely go home and could help ensure that the community care resumes, if appropriate.
RHIO plans to eventually add more records, such as medical home care services, which would make the RHIO more robust and useful, Shukitis said. The RHIO also plans to add more authorized users, including ambulance responders.
The RHIO earlier networked patient lab reports, test results, medication history, insurance information, radiology images and reports and hospital discharge summaries. The intent is to avoid unnecessarily repeated tests, reduce errors, facilitate second opinions and improve routine and emergency care. The RHIO received $6 million in funding from the state, insurers, hospitals and community employers for its work through 2011. It’s also disbursing $12.8 million to help computerize medical offices.
