Setting the pace: A case study of how the Indiana Health Information Exchange works
The doctor would send the patient for the test, then wait. And wait. The doctor would call the lab, leave several messages, get placed on hold, and maybe get an answer within a few days. Add in a lost fax or a report placed in the wrong file and it all added up to one big frustration.
When Cheryl Agent, practice administrator, was told the five-physician cardiac care practice could get lab results in real time, and in an organized, uniform fashion, it definitely got her attention. The kicker? The electronic system was free.
"It has cut down the time waiting for results tremendously and has streamlined everything we do," she said.
Now Agent can log into the system, open her in-box and pull all relevant reports for the day. She also logs in throughout the day, pulling new results as they are completed and entered in real time.
Developing a system that is free to doctors and delivers real value was the main objective of the Indiana Health Information Exchange when it developed its Docs4Docs clinical messaging system, the organization's flagship product that was jointly developed with the Regenstrief Institute, an informatics and health care research organization affiliated with the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Many regional health information organizations have failed in recent years, making President Bush's goal of having a National Health Information Exchange by 2014 seem further out of reach. But Indiana's exchange has been referred to by many as the model to emulate.
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