Health Providers Sign eRecords Pact

Five Boulder County health-care providers have signed agreements to share electronic medical records through a Colorado Regional Health Information Organization program.

Alpine Urology, Boulder Community Hospital, Gastroenterology of the Rockies, Longmont United Hospital and Spruce Street Internal Medicine have signed agreements, CORHIO said in a press statement. The nonprofit group is supported by state and federal grants.

Boulder Community Hospital is the first health-care provider affiliated with a state nonprofit group to go “live” in the program, CORHIO said. The other four Boulder County health providers are expected to start sharing medical data electronically early this summer.

“Boulder Community Hospital is very excited to be the first hospital in Colorado to begin sending patient data to CORHIO,” Valerie Lipetz, chief medical officer for the hospital’s affiliated physician clinics, said in the statement. “We will soon be joined by hospitals and physicians around the state who are working cooperatively to provide Colorado citizens with safer and more cost-effective patient care through our statewide Health Information Exchange.”

Patients’ lab tests, pathology results, X-rays, MRIs and other imaging reports and physician transcription reports will be made available on the CORHIO network as a result of the agreement. Later this year, the network will be upgraded to include patient medication lists, allergies and immunizations and lab and imaging orders, the group said in the statement.

Across the state, a total of seven hospitals, eight medical practices and four community mental-health centers have signed agreements to electronically exchange health information, the group said.

While no specific costs are available, general costs for each health-care provider are expected to be in the millions of dollars. The health-care industry’s move to electronic medical records systems is part of a federal push to ultimately reduce medical costs and improve health care.

Source: www.bcbr.com