A911 call comes into the communications center at Advanced Medical Transport (AMT) of Central Illinois for a patient having chest pain. The ambulance crew is dispatched to the patient’s address and soon arrives at the residence. Once on-site, one of the crew members begins to collect information about the patient from family members and allcharts®, while the paramedic works directly with the patient for assessment and treatment before transport to the hospital. The crew member is able to find a current medication list, past medical history, as well as pre-existing EKG and ECHO reports in allcharts. This information is provided directly to the paramedic for review, and he is able to determine the patient is not having an acute heart attack.
The type of scenario above will soon become a reality as Central Illinois Health Information Exchange (CIHIE) member Advance Medical Transport completes its training of providers. By the end of 2014, paramedics will be using information from allcharts on 911 calls.
For health care providers that are not able to access HIE data directly through an electronic health record (EHR), CIHIE offers a portal called allcharts. Data from CIHIE member organizations is aggregated and available in a single view at the online portal. All of the pooled data creates a regional and community-wide patient record.
According to Kelly Walsh, Critical Care program manager at AMT, the three-step roll-out of health information exchange to the AMT providers includes five nurses on staff who have been trained and use allcharts to find out patient information before a scheduled transport between hospitals. Critical care level paramedics were trained as step two, and the third step is training paramedics to use allcharts for 911 response.
“It will be different for our providers to gather patient information from a computer resource when they are used to looking at paper copies and getting information from the patient, family members, or from the patient’s surroundings, such as looking for pill bottles,” Walsh said.
In addition to using health information exchange for patient care, AMT also finds it helpful for quality assurance purposes and education.
“We have done a lot on the quality assurance side on the back end,” said Walsh. “We had a couple of pretty significant transports where I made a point to go back into allcharts and find out what impact our care had on the outcome of the patient. Our staff likes to know what happens after a transport. We can use allcharts as follow-up. It’s a huge educational learning tool for our staff.”
As one of four regional Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) in Illinois, the Central Illinois Health Information Exchange (CIHIE) is connected to the other three exchanges that include:
- Lincoln Land Health Information Exchange (LLHIE), Springfield
- Illinois Health Exchange Partners (ILHEP), Metro East St. Louis and Southern Illinois
- MetroChicago Health Information Exchange, Chicago.
Collectively, the four exchanges include 63 hospitals and geographically cover 92 percent of Illinois’ patient population. Connectivity of the regional exchanges allows participating providers to securely communicate summary care records, referrals, discharge notes and other documentation that is relevant to patient care. The regional exchanges share a common goal of seamless connectivity for Illinois health care providers, making a patient’s health record truly portable.
For more information on HIE in central Illinois, visit www.cihie.org.
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