Question

3. Health Information Exchange

Things to know:

What is it used for?

How does it work and where does the data come from (sources)?

What are its benefits?

What are its drawbacks?

Answer 1

HEALTH INFORMATION EXCHANGE

Electronic health information exchange (HIE) allows doctors, nurses, pharmacists, other health care providers and patients to appropriately access and securely share a patient’s vital medical information electronically—improving the speed, quality, safety and cost of patient care.

  Appropriate, timely sharing of vital patient information can better inform decision making at the point of care and allow providers to:-

• Avoid readmissions

•Avoid medication errors

• Improve checkup and diagnose

• Decrease duplicate and false testing

Once standardized, the data transferred can seamlessly integrate into the recipients' Electronic Health Record (EHR), further improving patient care. For example :- If laboratory results are received electronically and incorporated into a provider’s EHR , a list of patients with diabetes can be generated. The provider can then determine which of these patients have uncontrolled blood sugar and schedule necessary follow-up appointments.

Currently there are three many key forms of health information exchange 1. Directed exchange

2. Query based exchange

3. Consumer based exchange

BENEFITS

Available in Emergency: If you are in an accident and are unable to explain your health history to a health care provider, they can find the information about your medications, health issues, and tests and make informed decisions about your emergency care faster.

Protected in Disasters: If you are in an area affected by a disaster, like Hurricane your health information can be stored safely in electronic form.

Tracking for Protection: When your health information is shared electronically, information about access to your record is stored electronically. This can include the identity of those who accessed your record, the date of access, the types of information accessed and the reason your record was accessed.

Increased Safety/Reduced Duplication: Because health care providers can see what tests you have had and the results, they don't always have to repeat them. Especially with x-rays and certain lab tests, this means you are at less risk from radiation and other side effects. It also means you pay less for your health care.

DRAWBACKS

Identity Theft: Although health information benefits from all the security measures developed in other economic sectors such as defense and finance, it bears the same risks these other sectors have experienced. Identity theft occurs with both paper files and electronic files, but a breach of electronic files may affect more records than a breach of paper files.

tool to improve care. Just like a paper health record, if the health care provider does not enter the correct information, that information remains in the health record until it is corrected.

Hackers: As long as information technology has existed, there have been efforts to try and break into records of all kinds. Electronic health care information benefits from the security measure developed by other industries.