Group Health and The Everett Clinic to Exchange Electronic Patient Records
May 12, 2011
Group Health and The Everett Clinic are making it easier for primary care doctors, specialists, and hospital staff to quickly access a patient's health information.
With a patient's consent, Group Health and The Everett Clinic can electronically share the patient's medical record through the Care Everywhere network. This gives health care providers the ability to quickly access important medical information and provide the best immediate care.
"This is a part of our continuing effort to improve the coordination of patient care, whether for our patients within Group Health clinics or those who choose to see other providers," said Gwen O'Keefe, MD, chief medical informatics officer for Group Health. "Our hope is that this partnership will demonstrate you can provide better and safer care when records are available to all providers, and be a leader in this work as the nation works toward implementing a national health information exchange, leading to better care for everyone."
This is an important step to creating better clinical integration between both organizations as they design better approaches to care for patients in Snohomish and King counties. Group Health and The Everett Clinic have formally agreed to collaborate to keep patients healthier with improved quality and efficiency.
"Whether patients are getting their care from us, or from another organization, we want to make sure they have the greatest opportunity to receive the highest quality care," said Dr. Al Fisk, chief medical officer of The Everett Clinic. "It's the right thing to do for the patient and this partnership helps make that possible."
Both health care organizations were early adopters of electronic medical records, and both use the EPIC information system which offers Care Everywhere technology.
Group Health and The Everett Clinic join more than 50 health care organizations nationwide that are plugged into Care Everywhere, with many more on the way.
How It Works
When a Group Health patient comes to The Everett Clinic (or vice versa) and provides his or her consent, doctors and nurses will be able to easily and quickly access invaluable information about the patient's medications, allergies, and health conditions. This allows them to provide the right kind of treatment at the right time and increases safety by helping prevent unintended consequences like adverse medication interactions. Also, the potential for higher costs that could be associated with duplicate tests and treatments are reduced.
Furthermore, patients will no longer need to fax, copy, or scan paper records from one organization to the next.
Hospitals and care providers have to opt into the special Care Everywhere system. In the future, Group Health and The Everett Clinic look forward to working with other local health care organizations such as University of Washington, Seattle Children's, Multicare, Swedish, and other users of EPIC.
Group Health and The Everett Clinic jointly announced an agreement in 2010 to begin working together on health care delivery coordination in Snohomish and north King counties. Both organizations are leaders in redesigning the way care is delivered to provide additional value to patients.
Earlier this month, Group Health was one of five leading health care systems in the nation (Mayo Clinic, Geisinger, Kaiser Permanente, and Intermountain Healthcare) that joined together to create a Care Connectivity Consortium, a new initiative to securely exchange electronic health data while protecting patient confidentiality.
