HII takes the first steps down electronic health record path
HII takes the first steps down electronic health record path
By CYNTHIA DRAKE
Healthcare InfoTech Contributing Writer
The evolution to electronic health records (EHRs) is expected to be a slow process. Many industry observers have said they don’t expect progress until 2005. Health Information Institute (HII), a privately held start-up health information firm (Bellevue, WA), has a different view.
This young company has the beginnings of EHRs for providers, public health agencies and health plans. They’re already in use throughout the state of Washington. An on-line EHR service for family use ImmCare-for Families is projected to be available this June. That family electronic health record may prove a useful marketing tool for health plans in the state of Washington.
HII believes the patient, the parent and providers not to mention public health agencies benefit greatly when children are immunized regularly and records are kept of those immunizations. This is useful data, whether the child is starting school in September or transferring to a new healthcare provider from another area. Healthcare plans which choose to make HII’s ImmCare-for Families available to their consumers may get a jump start on their competition.
Doctors need to know when and where the child was vaccinated, who vaccinated them and if there are any patient specific details that will prevent an adverse reaction to a vaccine or prevent an unnecessary vaccination. When families move, change healthcare providers, receive vaccinations at various schools or clinics, chances are the immunization records may be scattered across the state or across the country.
Kevin Murray, MD, a Medalia Health Care physician and a past president of the Washington Academy of Family Physicians, says, "Easy access to a child’s immunization history and, eventually, to other preventive care treatment histories will allow healthcare providers to spend less time chasing down records and more time doing what we’re supposed to do treat patients and counsel them about their health."
HII was established in March 1997 to build a proprietary database of specialized personal healthcare information. The company’s services provide the healthcare industry with trusted third-party resources for integrating, storing, maintaining and authorizing access to personal health information.
The company started with children’s immunization records because the collection of this information was being subsidized by public and private grants at the state and federal level. HII has licensed one of the most advanced government-sponsored immunization registry databases in the U.S. and is using it as the foundation for its initial products and services.
The company began by selling secure access to children’s immunization tracking and reporting services to physicians, health insurance companies and public health agencies throughout Washington state via Child Profile and Child Web. As it got further along, HII discovered a much greater demand from parents who want fast, convenient access to their children’s records for school and day care enrollment. That product, ImmCare-for Families, is expected to be available in June.
HII is unique in its public and private partnership arrangements. The company works hand-in-glove with the Washington Department of Health. The other key to potential national success is HII’s relationship with its customer families. "Patients own their health information," says Gene Shook, HII’s vice president of operations and development. "We contract with the parents to be the trusted holder of their children’s information. We use the latest technology available to ensure security of that data 128-bit encryption and public and private keys. We are very carefully audited for our security practices.
In fact, says Beverly Jacobson, vice president of marketing for HII, the company recently received approval from the National Committee on Quality Assurance to allow its data to be used by health plans for their HEDIS (Healthcare Employer Data Information Set) reporting requirements. "This means we are medico-legally acceptable for administrative data manipulations and, even more importantly, as a true electronic medical record."
Health Information Institute’s initial product, Child Web, tracks the immunization histories of more than 94,000 children under age 6 in Washington state. Authorized healthcare providers who give immunizations in their offices or clinics can enter immunization updates into the registry and access immunization histories from that registry.
The company’s other products and services are being developed around Child Web. HII plans to make the ImmCare-for Families product available at a cost of $15 per year per family. Future efforts will target adult immunizations, pediatric allergies and various other preventive testing records perhaps pap smears, mammograms, prostate testing. The company expects to gradually expand its coverage, state by state, with Ohio and Alaska the next most likely to be added.
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