Six Washington-based health clinics have started an initiative to convert their patients’ health records to an electronic format and share those records among themselves and D.C.-area hospitals.
The DC Primary Care Association, an advocacy organization that focuses on the area’s low-income, uninsured and medically vulnerable residents, announced the deal on Monday.
“Health [information technology] is crucial in our view across the country to both cut costs and improve patient safety, decrease unnecessary duplicate services and provide better care,” said Sharon Baskerville, chief executive officer of DCPCA.
Three organizations have implemented the electronic medical records technology: the Whitman-Walker Clinic, So Others MightEat and La Clínica del Pueblo. By September, Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care, Bread for the City, and Family and Medical Counseling Service are slated to employ the new technology.
By the end of the year, all six groups will form the DC Regional Health Information Organization, which will provide a platform that connects all the centers and allows for real-time information sharing.
Georgetown University Hospital and the Washington Hospital Center plan to link with the RHIO.
The RHIO hopes to entice Howard University Hospital and Providence Hospital to sign on, and would like to include George Washington University Hospital and Greater SouthEast Community Hospital, said Baskerville.
The District is providing $11 million in grants: $5 million for the electronic medical records transition and $6 million for the RHIO as part of a three-year project that began in October 2007, said Baskerville.
“While the country is struggling with this and there’s a big push” for electronic medical records and sharing on the federal level, “D.C. is way out front,” Baskerville said, by investing in a safety net for residents.
DCPCA is also looking at linking third-party payers and Medicare with the RHIO, along with the Department of Health and Human Services, to provide data for public health monitoring, Baskerville added. The announcement comes on the same day Google’s electronic health records site Google Health was made available to the public.
