Recent News: Our Health Information
Exchange Enters Year 3
Secure, Personal Health Information Access for One Million
Consenting Indviduals
On
May 3, 2008, our Memphis-based health information exchange has been in
clinical operation for two years. Funded by AHRQ, the State of
Tennesse, and
Vanderbilt and governed by the non-profit MidSouth eHealth Alliance,
the Exchange has come a long way
The
Exchange currently has 356 people using the system for clinical care.
Physician / Provider roles - 199
Nurse roles - 109
Registrars and unit clerk functions - 48
These numbers will change as the last major system goes "near real
time" in the next few weeks and as more ambulatory care providers are
introduced to the program. The number of clinicians will increase and
the number of registrars and unit clerks will decrease dramatically.
Data come from
approximately 30 sites. Use is in all major emergency departments,
several ambulatory clinics, and among some hospitalists. Access is only
through secure ID. 100% of accesses undergo some form of audit. Use is
restricted to clinical settings. No aggregate data or metrics are kept.
Patients may "opt out" at the institutional level.
The Exchange grants secure
access to almost 3 million patient encounters.
Total number of unique individuals - 1,050,000
Total number of unique individuals with clinical data (not
just claims) - 809,000
We are still working on the latest
inventory of specific data elements.
From our February estimates, the
system has over 300,000 procedures codes, 2.6 million diagnostic
codes. On a daily basis, the system adds approximately 33,000
encounters, 850 microbiology tests, 1,200 chest x-ray reports and
some 80,000 laboratory test results. (Follow
this link to a February 2008 update)
